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The Victoria history of the
Counties of LEngland

EDITED BY WILLIAM PAGE, F.S.A.

A HISTORY OF
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

VOLUME II

THE
VICTORIA HISTORY

OF THE COUNTIES

OF ENGLAND
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED

This History is tssued to Subscribers only
By Constable & Company Limited
and printed by Eyre & Spottiswosde Limited
HM, Printers of London

INSCRIBED
TO THE MEMORY OF
HER LATE MAJESTY

QUEEN VICTORIA

WHO GRACIOUSLY GAVE
THE TITLE TO AND
ACCEPTED “THE
DEDICATION OF
THIS HISTORY

: THE

VICTORIA HISTORY
OF THE COUNTY OF

OTTINGHAM

| EDITED BY
WILLIAM PAGE, FS.A.

VOLUME TWO

LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED

IQ1O

THE

VICTORIA HISTORY
OF THE COUNTY OF

NOTTINGHAM

EDITED BY
WILLIAM PAGE, F.S.A.

VOLUME TWO

LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED

1910

CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO

Dedication

Contents 4 .

List of Illustrations and Maps
Editorial Note

Romano-British Nottinghamshire
Ecclesiastical History

Religious Houses

Introduction

Priory of Blyth

Priory of Wallingwells
Priory of Lenton
Abbey of Rufford
Priory of Beauvale
Priory of Felley . 3
Priory of Newstead
Priory of Shelford
Priory of Thurgarton
~ Priory of Worksop
Abbey of Welbeck
Priory of Broadholme
Priory of Mattersey .
Preceptory of Ossington

Franciscan Friars of Nottingham.

Carmelite Friars of Nottingham .

Observant Friars of Newark
College of Clifton .
Chantries or College of Newark .
College of Ruddington

Col'ege of Sibthorpe . ‘
Collegiate Church of Southwell .
College of Tuxford

Hospital of Bawtry ‘ :
Hospital of St. Edmund, Blyth .

Hospital of St. John the Evange-
list, Biyth

Hospital of Bradebusk
Hospital of St. Anthony, Lenton
Hopital of St. Leonard, Newark

~ Hospital of the Holy anaes
Nottingham .

By H. B. Watters, M.A., F.S.A.

By the Rev. J. C. Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.

” ” ”

”

CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO

PAGE
Religious Houses (continued)
Hospital of St. John othe
Nottingham . 168
Hospital of St. Leonard, Nxting
ham . : : ; : : ‘ . : . : - 173
Hospital of St. Mary at West me
Nottingham . F - , “ ‘ ; : : . : « T74
Plumtree’s Hospital, semua : ‘ ; ‘ ‘ : ; ; ; . 17g
Hospital of St. sian cama
Southwell. F . : : ; : : . : » 175
Hospital of St. Leonard, Stoke . ‘ ‘ . : ; ; 5 ‘ . 176
Schools :
Introduction . F : . By A. F. Leacu, M.A, F.S.A. ; : ; . 179
Southwell Minster Grammar
School : ‘ re % 3 : « : . - 183
The Magnus Grammar School,
Newark : . ; 5 9 3 : z j : - 199
The Newark Girls’ School . é " 5 bs é 7 : j . 215
Nottingham Grammar School. Pe s 53 : : z : . 216
Nottingham University College . 4s ¥5 + ‘ : 5 . a 238
East Retford Grammar School . yr e PA ; ‘ 2 : . 239
Mansfield Grammar School : 5 $5 Pa . ; : i - 245
Brunts’ Technical School, Mans-
field. : : : s es is : ‘ ‘ : . 249
The Gir's’ Grammar School b re a - ‘ 5 : ; . 250
Tuxford Grammar School . - . % ‘ F : : # 250
Elementary Schools founded b:fore
1800 . . : . By F. Frercner, M.A. . ; F : : o 3253
Social and Economic =e ‘ . By Miss A. B. Wautis Cuapman, D.Sc. (Occ.) . 265

Table of Population, 1801-1901 By Georce S. Mincuin . e 5 ; : + 307

Industries :

Introduction . ‘ ‘ . By Miss E. M. Hewirr . . : , a - 319

Coal : 5 : : . By C. H. Vexracort, B.A. : 4 . . - 324
Building Stone . : 5 . By Miss E. M. Hewitt . : : : : - 330
Gypsum or Alabaster Z ‘ 35 6 . : ’ : ‘ 331
Glass and Pottery. c ; a 5 3 3 : : : » 333
Fisheries . : ; : : is. , ? : ji , + 335
Tanning . : ; : : ¥ as é ; 3 F ; » 337
Shoe-making . ‘ ‘ ‘ 3 ss ‘ P : : - 339
Glove-making . : : ; 35 “ ‘ 3 : , ‘ + 340
Wool s ‘ : F 7 oe $5 ‘ i é : . » 340
Cloth is 2 . é 99 5 % % “ A 7 + 344
Dyeing and Bleaching : ; a a ‘ : ’ . 7 . 347
Silk and Velvet . : F 3 $5 : * 3 : : - 350
Flax and Linen z ‘ ‘ 3 4 . : 2 : . . Hee
Cotton . ‘ : ‘ . 3 - ; ‘ : 3 : + 351

CONTENTS

Industries (continued)
Hosiery .
Worsted .
Lace .
Malting and Brewing

Tronwork, Foundries,

Cycles, and Machine Building

Bell-Founding .
Agriculture
Sport Ancient and Modern
Hunting .
Foxhounds
The Rufford
The South Notts
The Grove
Racing .
Shooting .
Decoys
Angling .
Cricket
Old Time Sports
Rowing .
Swimming

Athletics .

OF VOLUME TWO

By Miss E. M. Hewirr .

” ”

By W. H_ R. Currier

Edited by the Rev. E. E. Dorui

By F. Bonnetrr

By Sir Home Gorpon, Bart.

By F. Bonnetr

nc, M.A., F.S.A.

PAGE

352
358
358
363

366
367
371

383
383
383
385
386
388
398
401
402
405
410
413
416
418

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Old Trent Bridge (from a painting by John Rawson Walker) . : : , . Frontispiece
Romano-British Nottinghamshire :-—
Crococolana : Plan showing Excavations on Site . . : , : : : . 13

Brough : Fragmentary ‘ Face Jar’

” Horn used asa Pick . ‘ ‘ E $ : . full-page plate, facing 14
ss Specimens of Pottery .
Vernemetum : Plan of Site ; : ; 2 : : . ; : ; - 18
Segelocum : Plan of Site, showing possible indications of Roman Settlement. : «32
Littleborough : Drawing of Oculist’s Stamp . F ‘ : : ; ‘ ‘ ee 22

Brough : Cheekpiece of Roman Helmet | * r :
= Ze

Littleborough : Roman Altar found in Trent i a

Clarborough : Roman Portrait Bust (Third Century after Christ)

Remains of Roman Bridge over the Trent, found near Cromwell in Sull-page plate, facing 24

1885 . ; . .
Cromwell : Plan of Roman Bridge. : : - : . . . : 2g
Farnsfield : Hexgrave Park: Pig of Lead . é ) . : . i : a. ay
Flintham : Roman Vase . : ; 3 r , ‘i : . . $ a 29
Holme Pierrepont : Glass Bowl . : i : . : : $ . : - 28

Mansfield Woodhouse : Pavement found in Roman Villa : ‘ ‘ : ‘ » 29

es > Plan of Roman Villa j p 5 a 5 ‘ : ‘ 30
si es Hypocausts in Roman Villa. . ‘ . ‘ : . 3a
5 a Inscription found in Villa 2 ‘ = P 3 5 - 31
Skegby : Bronze Fibula. : ‘ : F ‘ : . , j ; - 34

Religious Houses : —

Nottinghamshire Monastic Seals: PlateI . : . - . full-page plate, facing 116

a ‘3 55 Plate II . 4 . : . full-page plate, facing 146
Industries :—
Old-fashioned Hand Frame 5 é : , 3 : .
New Patent Hosiery Frame, making Twelve Articles at a a POPE PRE See 358

LIST OF MAPS

Roman Map . . , we : : : ‘ a ; ; . . facing I
Ecclesiastical Map. ; . : . . , ‘ ; : ‘ facing 78

xiii

EDITORIAL NOTE

Tue Editor wishes to express his thanks to Mr. G. H. Wallis,
F.S.A., Director of the Art Museum, Nottingham Castle, for
assistance and advice in various ways ; to Professor Haverfield,
M.A., LL.D., D.Litt., F.S.A., for reading the proofs of the
article on the Roman Remains, and to Mr. T. Cecil S. Woolley
and the Rev. A. du Boulay Hill, M.A., for information and
illustrations for that article; to Mr. F. M. Stenton, M.A., for
reading the proofs of the article on Ecclesiastical History ; to
Mr. Henry Ashwell, J.P., Mr. Ernest Jardine, J.P., Mr. R. H.
Beaumont, Secretary to the Chamber of Commerce, Nottingham,
Mr. R. F. Percy and Messrs. T. B. Cutts, Ltd., for information
regarding the industries of the county ; to Mr. H. B. Walters,
M.A., F.S.A., for notes on bell-founding, and to the Society
of Antiquaries, the Royal Archeological Institute, and the
British Archeological Association for illustrations.

XV c

A HISTORY OF
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Reference

ROMAN MAP Settlements
a + Ca

Miscellaneous Finds
Dowbttul Finds

xerod

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

— froads
Doubttul Roads

H I ada a
S ae
K Misterton
g eB ‘
a tere yo hy hig > — nde ‘. ~
i i
ie *” Bley on te Eaigsborough
ee ! 3
i \ sy
: a
Jay ( .
oes to age
hy we S Hayton t y
Lae Nai
J 4 eClarborough eit éborough
- we
X Calefdrd aA *
Shireoaks ? ortooNg ere J SEcE OS "
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feed fe Wor Sopi, 4 :
)
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a 1
oN '
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i ST ee,
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% fNarsop pe /
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a = : 1 ff / D
oe td
he a a
Wesenoud Sherwood Coli :
ingham \ A
$hegoye Mansfice Pome { Cromwell , bg \gh ar Hill
ae j Gale H
s, i ‘ Langfo, “A
y, cs aiate wn fl CROCOCOLANA
Br }
c xBlidwor) 1 tarnsfield inthorpe
fQ romp Upton. Rrent A. 2
C ‘i
a Southwell an
okton re
Hucknall ,¢ C. Thurgarton \ i iS)
0 Torkard alyer "RE p perston VU
oO @ \
Arnoid
. N49 :
‘ \ \ z
Roy a
7 Shelford D coiston wef" ue
a JS.NOTTINGHAM _ frp ARG rt
© - <
- ae ~Peingham \ °
a Wii
: Prerrepoint a
{ Beeston, aida Gram be
— Cotgrave ‘ y

“<P Barton py re a ‘
ys. & in Fabis co ey pegs
_ S
Hickling &

Widmer pdol Q .

t sutton Willoughty .. x ewrtor a
Bonnington Me te Wes
a Pe te ; ‘ s

Mi Beentord f “a

ROMANO-BRITISH
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE’

T the time of the Roman invasion of Britain the whole, or at least
the larger part, of the district now known as Nottinghamshire
appears to have been inhabited by the Coritani, a British tribe who
also occupied the adjoining country on the east, south, and west,

and whose chief towns were Lincoln (Lindum), and Leicester (Ratae).? In
giving an account of the civilization of this district in the Roman period we
do not pretend to write a history of it. Not only is our knowledge
insufficient, but the very nature of the subject forbids us. Just as the whole
of Roman Britain ‘was not an independent unit but part of a vast and
complex Empire,’* so (and still more really) Roman Nottinghamshire was
not an independent unit, but a part of Roman Britain. It was not even
recognized by the Romans as a distinct division of the country. Thus it is
that no consecutive historical account of the region during this period is
possible, and that to speak of ‘Roman Nottinghamshire,’ though undeniably
convenient, especially for the purposes of this work, is strictly a contradiction
in terms. All that can be done is to show from existing evidence—which is
almost entirely archaeological in character—how far a particular district
illustrates the general character of Roman Britain.

From the invasion by the Emperor Claudius in a.p. 43 the spread of
Roman conquest went on at first steadily, and indeed rapidly. By a.p. 47
the whole of the eastern part of Britain up to the Humber, including the
district now known as Nottinghamshire, was probably occupied ; and after-
wards the troops were moved on to begin the subjugation of the more hilly
country to the north and west. Professor Haverfield has shown that the
whole of Britain may be divided into two marked portions: the eastern,
southern, and south-western districts, corresponding generally with the low-
lands, and the northern and western, corresponding with the hill country.
These he describes respectively as civilian and military. The border-line
may be drawn roughly along the line of Watling Street and Ryknield Street
from Wroxeter to Chesterfield, and so on to York.* Thus Nottinghamshire,
though close to the hills, falls into the lowland or civilian section.

1 In this introductory section much use has been made of Professor Haverfield’s articles on Roman
Derbyshire and Warwickshire in other volumes of the series. For the whole article, general acknowledgements.

for help and information must be made to Mr. T. Cecil S. Woolley, the Rev. A. du Boulay Hill and others ;.
also to Mr. Watkin’s articles on Roman Nottinghamshire in Arch. Fourn. xiii, and the Nottingham Daily

Guardian, 1877.
? Ptolemy, Geographia, i, 99 (ed. Firmin Didot, 1883).
3 V.C.H. Warw. i, 223. 4 V.C.H. Derb. i, 192.
2 I I

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

As this geographical division has always affected the history of England,
so especially in the Roman period. In the development of the country after
the conquest there was a sharp contrast between the upland and the lowland ;
where the hills began, civilization ceased, and military occupation was the
rule. The lowland country was then the region of settled civil life. The
troops were at an early stage withdrawn to the less settled parts of the country,
and after the first century practically no forts were required in it. It was the
usual practice of the Romans, in all provinces requiring armed occupation,
to mass their troops along the frontier or in specially disturbed areas, and this
rule was followed in Britain. Hence there are in Nottinghamshire practically
no traces of that military occupation of which the neighbouring county of
Derby yields such fine examples in its northern portion.

Elsewhere, Professor Haverfield has called attention to the complete
Romanization of Britain,’ and has shown how we may note the general dis-
tribution of pottery, of mosaic work, of the decoration of houses or methods
of heating them, even in wild and remote parts such as Cranborne Chase or
the midland forests, which seem to have offered no obstacle to the all-
pervading Romans. But it was a ‘Romanization on a low scale.’ We find
no great works or buildings, no fine specimens of art ; the objects discovered
are mostly of a commonplace character.

If the lowland area of Roman Britain falls somewhat behind the general
average of western Europe in the intensity of its Roman civilization, the
midlands of Britain fall equally behind the rest of the British lowland area.
The large cities and more vigorous rural life of the province lie round rather
than in the central plain, and Leicester (Ratae) is perhaps the only Romano-
British town of any importance in the whole region. This is partly explained
by physical facts. The natural features of the country are themselves on a low
scale ; it is not specially fertile, and there were no industries, as at the
present day, its mineral wealth being as yet undiscovered. The people lived
a normal and peaceful life, differing from the ordinary civilization of Britain
only in the scantiness of population and the lack of distinctive features. The
rural life was little developed, and the land largely wooded, nor was the soil
of a character to encourage much agriculture, in either of the two most
obvious directions of sheep-farming and corn-growing.

The foregoing sketch of a midland district in Roman times is in actual
fact largely taken from Professor Haverfield’s description of Warwickshire ; °°
but almost every word that he has there written will apply equally well to
Nottinghamshire, which presents many similar features. Both counties include
portions of two great Roman roads, with the stations thereon at intervals, but
no towns of importance ; hoth were largely covered with forest, especially on |
the western side ; and both lie at about the same distance from the dividing
line between the lowlands and the hill country.

A glance at the map will show that traces of Roman occupation are
fairly well distributed all over the county, though rarer in the central district
occupied by Sherwood Forest and along the western border than along the ©
lines of the main roads in the north and east, and nowhere are they found in
great quantities. As has been said, there is no site deserving the name of a

°V.C.H. Warw, i, 225. ® Ibid. 228.

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

town : the only settlements where there can have been anything like perma-
nent occupation are the stations of Brough (Crococolana), East Bridgeford
(Margidunum), and Willoughby (Vernemetum) along the Fosse Way, and
Littleborough on Ermine Street (Segelocum). Too this list Southwell should
possibly be added, though the importance attached to it by older writers was
much exaggerated. Its Roman name, if any, is unknown, but the Saxon
name of Tiovulfingaceaster, if indeed it denotes this spot, suggests a Roman
site, and considerable if unimportant remains of pavements, &c., have been
found there.’ Much more doubtful are the claims of Newark or ‘ Eltavona’
as advanced by Stukeley.®

In addition there are three examples of villas: at Barton in Fabis,
Styrrup, near Blyth, and Mansfield Woodhouse. ‘The first two of these have
yielded mosaics, and the third, if less luxuriously fitted, was certainly extensive.
These and similar villas were probably (as Professor Haverfield has pointed
out) the property of the Romanized nobles and upper classes of Britain (as
was the case in Gaul), who cultivated their land by means of slaves and let it
out in part to co/omt. Seldom if ever were they owned by Roman officials,
and in view of what has been said about the peaceful character of the lowland
districts under the Romans, it is clear that the oft-repeated statements that
these villas were the residences of local commanding officers or ‘ centurions’
cannot be substantiated. The peasantry, it may be imagined, lived under very
poor conditions.

No fewer than twelve hoards of coins have been discovered in the county
at different times. ‘The list, with approximate numbers and dates, is as follows
—in probable order of deposit :—

(1) Askham . — _ B.C. 49-A.D. 96 (7) Nottingham — a.D. 253-73
(2) Selston . . = — A.D. 54-117 (8) Epperstone 1,000 A.D. 254-93
(3) Babworth . gt ap. 54-180 (9) Everton . 600 A.D. 253-305
(4) Calverton . 200 a.v. 98-138 (10) Osberton . 940 Constantines(4th
(5) Hickling . 200 a.D. 70-175 century)
(6) Mansfield . 350 B.C. 31-A.D. 212 (11) Oxton . . -— No details

(12) Wilford . — No details

It will thus be seen that they cover practically the whole period of the
Roman domination of Britain. In regard to the Nottingham and Epperstone
finds it has often been noted that hoards for which the date of their con-
cealment must be fixed during the last half of the third century are not
infrequent in Britain. The reason assigned for this is that they were hidden
to avoid loss by plunder during a disturbed condition of the country ; but a
more systematic investigation of the whole subject is to be desired. In particular
we need to know more accurately the latest coin in each hoard. It is often a
solitary specimen of a brief-ruling Emperor in whose time the hoard was
deposited, and such a solitary coin is exactly the feature which is easiest lost.
We rarely possess the whole of a hoard, and our published records pay far
more attention to the Emperors represented by hundreds of coins than to the
all-important single specimen. In addition to the finds above mentioned,
some allusion should be made here to Mr. Cecil Woolley’s carefully-recorded
discoveries of coins at Brough, covering the period from Domitian to
Gratian.?

7 See below, p. 34. 8 See p. 32. ® See below, p. 14.
3

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Several earth-walled ‘camps’ are scattered about the county, the majority
being in the Sherwood Forest district, its highest part. The list of those
which for one or other reason have been considered to be Roman is given
below ; but in hardly any case can the supposition be upheld, either on
account of form or the discovery of Roman remains. The majority appear
to be hill-fortresses or defences” of an earlier date, constructed and utilized
by the native Britons. They are here classified in accordance with the
system laid down by the Congress of Archaeological Societies" and adopted
in the article ‘ Earthworks’ in the previous volume of this work.

Type A.—Promontory Fortress Type C.—RecTrancutar Camps
4 Arnold
Hatestieldi Com): omaa ena Bridgeford, East. Roman station of Margidunum
Epperstone

. Type B.—Hrr Fortress 7 ante
Blidworth Oxton (Lonely Grange)
Farnsfeld (Hexgrave} Southwell (oval form)
Grove
Se aole eae Type X.—UncErRTAIN
Scaftworth (Everton) Barton in Fabis (British)

In this list Margidunum is the only one of which we can safely state
that it was inhabited in Roman times. It was indeed a Romano-British
village. Combs also has yielded Roman remains, but not such as to prove
very definite occupation.

Lastly, a few words may be said on the traces of Roman roads in the
county. The subject is. treated in full detail in the succeeding section,
where the literary evidence, mainly derived from the Itimerarium Antonini, the
Roman ‘road-book,’ is compared and combined with such archaeological
evidence as is available. The latter is supplied chiefly by actual remains, such
as milestones or traces of ancient metalling, or by the straightness of the
existing tracts between known Roman sites. The Itinerary, which in the
form in which we have it may date from the early part of the 3rd century,
is a source of evidence which—like the straightness of roads—must be used
with caution, owing to its lack of accuracy and mistakes in the manuscripts.
Even the mileage, which is invariably given between the stations, is qualified
by the formula M.P.M., milla plus minus, though this probably means in the
first place that fractions are omitted. But in default of detailed topographi-
cal descriptions by contemporary ancient writers, its information has been
and always will be invaluable. Three of its routes passed through the
county ; the fifth along Ermine Street or one of its branches, the sixth along
the Fosse Way, while the eighth combines the two,

Roaps
(1) THE FOssE WAY

This road is one of the best known and best authenticated Roman roads
in this country, and is mentioned in numerous ancient charters, some of them
older than the Conquest. An outline of its course as one of the four royal

it should be remembered, were not necessarily placed on high ground like those of
4 Report on Ancient Earthworks, 1903 5 cf. V.C.H. Notts. i, 294, ff.

10 Roman camps,
earlier times.

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

roads is given by the mediaeval chroniclers, in particular by Henry of Hun-
tingdon” and by Higden,”™ the latter of whom wrote that from Leicester it
proceeded ‘per vasta plana versus Newark’ and ended at Lincoln. It has
been suggested that the name itself originated in the fossa or covered drain
which the Roman road-makers are alleged to have made to remove the
surface soil and receive the gravel, but this is altogether improbable.

Its course through Nottinghamshire is traced in the sixth and eighth
routes of the Antonine Itinerary, the former giving the stations from London
via Venones (High Cross) to Lincoln, the latter those from York to Lincoln
and thence in the reverse direction from Lincoln to London. With one
exception the same names appear between Leicester and Lincoln in both
routes, and in each case the sum total of the distances amounts to fifty-two
Roman miles.”

The following table shows the stations with their modern names and
the distances as given :—

Iter VI Iter VILL

Ratis (Leicester). ‘ — — Lindo —_- —
Verometo (Willoughby) 6 M.P.M.” xiii Crococolana . M.P.M. xiiii
Margiduno (East Bridgeford)"® M.P.M. xii Margiduno . » . . . M.P.M. xiii
Ad Pontem (Thorpe or Vernemeto. . . . . . M.P.M. xii

Farndon?) ®. . . . M.P.M. vii Ratis ; M.P.M. xii
Crococolana (Brough)? M.P.M. vii
Lindo (Lincoln) M.P.M. xii

It will be seen that there are trifling discrepancies in the mileage of the
two routes. The identification of the three intermediate stations may be
considered as certain ; the question of Ad Pontem is fully discussed later on
in this section.

Even among Roman roads the Fosse is remarkable for the directness of
its course, which is marked in a straight unbroken line on the maps of the
Ordnance Survey for this county. It enters it from Lincoln at Potter Hill,
120 ft. above the sea, in the parish of North Collingham. After a slight
turn, a stretch of six miles continues in a straight line through Newark,
intersecting the parishes of South Collingham, Langford, and Winthorpe.
The road appears near Coddington to have been fenced in originally, twenty
to thirty yards wide, and to have been since narrowed in many places, by
which the general straightness is disguised. At a distance of two miles from
Potter Hill we reach the station of Crococolana, the modern Brough, which
is described elsewhere.” At Langford, Dickinson claimed to have found
traces of a camp,” and at Winthorpe the foundations of a Roman bridge over

1 Hist. Lib.’ Rerum Angl. Script. i, 199. 18 Polychronicon, Lib. i (Hist. Brit. [ed. Gale], iii, 196).

™ Guest, in Arch. Fourn. xiv, 101 ff. On this road and its course generally see Codrington, Rom. Roads
in Brit. 245 ff. ; also Nichols, Hist. Leic. i, cxlvii ; Arch. Fourn. xiii, 42.

® Wesseling, Vetera Rom. Itin. 476 ff. ; Horsley, Brit. Rom. 388 ; Codrington, op. cit. 21 ; Forbes and
Burmester, Our Rom. Highways, 208 ; Ravers in Antiquary, XXxvili, 294.

M.P.M. as noted above, indicates millia plus minus, or approximate mileage only.

#® Gale and Salmon, New Surv. of Engl. i, 288 ff., Willoughby.

19 Gale and Salmon, E. Bridgeford ; Reynolds, Jvr. Brit. 264 ff., Farndon. 70 Salmon, Newark.

*1 Codrington, op. cit. 248. But deviations to avoid holes in the roadway may perhaps better explain
this feature.

7) See p. 11. * Antig. in Notts. i, 104.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

the Trent,‘ but in the latter he appears to be mistaken.” Stukeley, who
travelled here in 1722, wrote that from Brough the Fosse ‘ goes extremely
strait to Newark between hedge-rows, it is in very ill repair ; nay, in some
places they dig the very stone and gravel out of it to mend their streets.’
Its course through this town is parallel with the river, along Northgate,
Castlegate and Millgate, the direct line being lost for a short distance in the
last-named thoroughfare.

Beyond Newark there is a slight turn ; then the road runs for
two and a half miles in another straight line through the parishes of Farndon,
Thorpe, and East Stoke, where it nears the banks of the Trent. Here we
are on the debatable ground where the missing site of Ad Pontem must be
sought. Concerning this the theorizing has been endless, from Gale to the
present century.

It has already been noted that this name, occurring in the sixth Itinerary,
is omitted from the eighth, although both obviously follow the line of the
Fosse. Moreover, the actual distance between the two stations on either side,
Crococolana and Margidunum, is given in both routes the same, viz. fourteen
miles.” It has been suggested—though it is obviously unlikely—that no
such independent point as Ad Pontem ever existed, and that the phrase
ad Pontem was merely a note added to Margidunum (East Bridgeford) to
mark the point of digression from the Fosse to a supposed bridge over the
Trent there, for which purpose a notice was affixed by the side of the road,
and that some transcriber, mistaking the note for the name of a separate
station, halved the mileage to make the numbers correspond.” Several early
antiquaries* identified Ad Pontem with East Bridgeford, until Horsley
corrected this error. It is, however, worth noting that a road runs at right-
angles to the Fosse from Margidunum down to the river,” and that this road
has been held to be Roman.

Horsley, however, pointed out that the mileage as given in the Itinerary
inevitably fixed Ad Pontem at about three miles from Newark, and suggested
Farndon as a likely site." ‘I went to view the ground,’ he wrote, ‘ when
last at Newark, and did not think the situation or appearance very un-
promising.’ Reynolds® and Wright® agree with him in accepting this
view. The exact half-way between Brough and East Bridgeford is in Thorpe
parish, between Farndon and East Stoke.

The question was again considered more than fifty years later, when Bishop
Bennet of Cloyneand Mr. Leman traced the course of the Fosse from Lincoln
to Devonshire, and agreed in fixing this much-disputed site at Thorpe,”
where coins and pavements have been found.® Mr. Leman gives his reasons
in a footnote: ‘Tumuli, appearances of the corners of a camp, and the

** Op. cit. 4, 92. ; * See pp. 7, 36. © Itin. Cur. 104.

ae Watkin in Nottingham Daily Guardian, 20 Feb. 1877 ; Arch. Fourn. xiii, 22. He calls ita ‘mansio’ or
‘mutatio.” Cf Fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli, 43. But he begs the question when he explains the name as
“the point for branching off and crossing the river.’

*8 Standish in Thoroton Soc. Trans. vii, 37 ; Notts. and Derb. N. and Q. iv, Dec. 1896, p- 183.

* Stukeley, Gale, and Salmon ; see below, p. 15 ; also Standard, 31 Oct. 1884, for a later advocate of
this view.

% See under Bridgeford, p. 17. *) Brit. Rom. 438

3 Tver, Brit. 264. 3 Celt, Roman ony S 6

*“ Nichols, Hist. and Antig. of Leic. i, cxlix ; ‘not far distant from the present eee ee - are

38 See Index. is

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

remarkable circumstance of the bending of the road on leaving it,’ while
the bishop adds as further proof the proximity of the Trent to the road,
the correspondence of distance, and the neighbourhood of Southwell, arhich
he believed to be a Roman station. The same arguments are quoted by
Throsby in his additions to Thoroton, on the authority of ‘a gentleman of
high respectability,’ perhaps the bishop or his friend ; but in a later passage
he mentions a tradition of a bridge across the Trent from Thorpe Bar to
Southwell, and suggests that the supposed station of Ad Pontem might
have stood on an eminence at East Stoke commanding it.* Thorpe was
subsequently also accepted by Watkin and others.” We have, however,
no evidence that a bridge ever existed at Thorpe or Farndon. The same
objection applies to Throsby’s theory (adopted by Compton)* advancing
East Stoke as the locality.

Lower down the river traces ot a bridge were, according to Dickinson,”
observed in 1792-3 north of Newark at Winthorpe. He brought this
forward in support of his view that Ad Pontem was to be identified with
Southwell. But the subsequent discovery in 1877 and 1884 of remains of
an undoubtedly Roman bridge three miles below, between Cromwell and
Collingham,® demonstrated that Dickinson was either mistaken in the
locality he gives, or that he had given too free rein to his imagination. But
even accepting the Winthorpe bridge as Roman, the absurdity of placing
Ad Pontem at Southwell remains as great, involving as it does, firstly, an
irreconcilable discrepancy with the mileage of the Itinerary, secondly an
inconceivable détour from the line of the Fosse, entailing two crossings of the
Trent ; and this though Southwell cannot have been a place of much im-
portance in Roman times. Yet Dickinson’s theory, in part if not wholly,
has been seriously considered by recent writers,* even Dr. Raven writing in
1902 ‘that the Trent had to be crossed by a bridge is manifest,’ and regard-
ing the Cromwell bridge as ‘admirably suited to the name Ad Pontem.’
Perhaps to the name, but hardly to the locality!“ It is obvious that both
Farndon and Thorpe correspond far better with the distance and line of route
than any other site, although in neither case is there any evidence for the
existence of a bridge. Nor can we safely accept another suggestion which
has been made. It has been pointed out that Ad Pontem is equally possible
Latin for ‘to the bridge’ and ‘at the bridge.’ It is not therefore essential to
predicate the existence of a bridge over the Trent at all. A glance at the
Orographical map of the county in Volume I will show that Farndon and
Thorpe lie in very low ground (not exceeding soft. above the sea) between
the Trent and the Devon. It is conceivable that there was here, if not a

3° Hist. of Notts.i, 71, 148 ; see also Fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli, 43. Throsby also seems to suggest
Newark or Ponton in Lincolnshire as possibilities.

3” Standard, 5 Nov. 1884 ; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 22 ; Antig. xxxviii, 297. Watkin’s statement that ‘at least
as much masonry has been found here as at Southwell’ is not clear. It is not the case (see Index, s.v. Thorpe),
and if it was, would prove nothing.

%° Fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli, 43 ff.

8° Antig. in Notts. i, 92; see pp. 5, 363 also the map in Dickinson at end of part 1.

See Index, s.v. Cromwell.

“Cf. Nichols, Hist. and Antig. of Leic. i, cxlix ; Nottingham Daily Guardian, 20 Feb. 1877; Arch. Fourn.
xlili, 28 ; Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli, 43.

” Standard, 31 Oct. and 3 Nov. 1884; Antig. xxxvili, 297.

“A writer in the Standard, 5 Nov. 1884, places Ad Pontem at Cromwell, taking the road along the
right bank of the Trent to Littleborough.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

bridge, at least a raised causeway with culverts carrying the Fosse over the
most marshy and low-lying part of the route. The notification in the
Itinerary would then be for the benefit of the traveller from the south,
indicating where he would leave the high ground over which he had so long
been passing for the alluvial levels of the Trent valley with their attendant
dangers of swamp and flood. Unfortunately such notifications do not occur
in the Itinerary, nor is this one so lucid in its form as to have much claim
to be considered such a notification.

The fact is that we waste time thus torturing the sense of the Itinerary
and the probabilities of the case. It seems plain that there existed a ‘station’
—perhaps a very small one—at the Fosse near Thorpe, and connected perhaps
with the remains actually observed here, and this station was known as Ad
Pontem. Why it was so called, whether a now vanished branch-road crossed
the Trent, or the crossing of the Fosse over the Devon is concerned, and whether
that crossing was in Roman days exactly where it now is, and whether there
was any other bridge for the Fossein the low ground beside the Trent, are ques-
tions which it is useless to ask, because we lack evidence at present to answer
them. Equally idle is it to inquire why the Itinerary names Ad Pontem in
one place and omits it in another. Such omissions are not uncommon in this
as in other road-books, and their causes are in general neither discoverable nor
worth discovering.

Resuming our route, the road now ascends to the higher ground between
the Trent and Devon valleys, and passes through the parish of Flintham, where
Roman pottery has been found. For eight miles from East Stoke it runs in
an absolutely straight line to High Thorpe near Bingham (200 ft.),“ where
after crossing the railway it finally leaves the high road, which turns off to
Nottingham. For the whole distance from Flintham to Willoughby, where
it crosses the county boundary, it serves as a division between parishes, except
at Cropwell Butler, where the parish lies on either side of it. About six
miles from East Stoke the road reaches East Bridgeford, where it passes right
through the middle of the ‘station’ of Margidunum“ fourteen miles from
Brough.

At High Thorpe there is another slight turn, and thence it is straight,
and still a passable road, for three and a half miles to Cotgrave Gorse (250 ft.).
From here to the crossing of the Nottingham and Melton road, near Widmer-
pool station, it is described as ‘a wide rough track, not appearing very straight
because of encroachments.” Between East Bridgeford and Willoughby Stukeley
found what he took to be the pavement of the road ‘ very manifest,’ and near
Lodge-in-the-Wolds, in Cotgrave parish, it was (he says) 100 ft. broad and
made of ‘ great blue flagstones laid edgewise very carefully,’ which were taken,
he said, from quarriesnear. ‘From this point,’ he writes, ‘it has been entirely
paved with red flints, seemingly brought from the sea-coasts: these are laid
with the smoothest face upwards upon a bed of gravel over the clayey marl,’
and he mentions a local tradition that this pavement, ‘very broad and visible
when not covered with dirt,’ extended from Leicester to Newark. Gale speaks

4 About here Stukeley, in his view of Ad Pontem, as he calls Bridgeford (Itin. Cur. pl. go), represents a
tumulus or barrow apparently right across the line of the road. It may be intended to indicate the position of

Vernemetum (see below).

45 See p. 15. *© Codrington, Rom. Roads, 248,

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

of the pavement of the Fosse as visible a little east from Widmerpool by Lodge-
in-the-Wolds and then again at East Bridgeford and near Collingham.”
Nearly a century after Stukeley, Laird wrote, ‘This road may be easily traced
for many miles along the /Vo/ds and it is literally a fosse, dug so deep that an
army might march along it even now without being seen except by those on
the very edge of the bank. Several of the roads through the wolds cross it in
different places, particularly about Ow/shorpfe, and in many parts the remains of
the old pitching with stones set on edge may be found by clearing away the
grass and weeds.“ ‘Twenty-five years ago Watkin found the Fosse about here
much in the same state, and described it as grass-grown with its pavement
full of deep ruts. ‘From Widmerpool station,’ says Codrington, ‘for a mile
a narrow metalled road runs along the middle between fences twenty yards or
more apart, and then turns off, the wide green road continuing on to Six Hills
(447 ft.), eight-and-a-half miles from Cotgrave.’ In Cotgrave parish a late
Roman burial has been unearthed close to the road, and finds of coins are
recorded at Hickling and Widmerpool.”

A little more than two miles from Widmerpool station brings the road
to the site of Vernemetum at Willoughby.” Thence it follows the county
boundary for about two-and-a-half miles to Six Hills,” where it finally leaves
it for Leicestershire.

(2) ERMINE STREET

The fifth and eighth routes of the Antonine Itinerary followed a branch
of the so-called Ermine Street, which led from Lincoln to York, and crossed
North Nottinghamshire on its way.* The routes are given as follows :—

Iter V (London to Carlisle) Iter VIII (York to London via Leicester)
Causennis . . — Dano & GR ek —_—
Lindo (Lincoln) . . . . M.P.M. xxvi Ageloco. . . . . M.P.M. xxi
Segeloci (Littleborough). . . M.P.M.xiiii indo . . . . . M.P.M. xiiii
Dano (Doncaster). . . . . M.P.M. xxi

It branches off from the northward road about four miles beyond Lincoln,
and some writers like to speak of it as a ua vicinalis, others give it the name
of Ermine Street itself. In all probability it was a more convenient route
to York than the more direct one which involved the crossing of the Humber
estuary. Segelocum and Agelocum, as given in the two routes, are only
forms of the same name, and the former is to be traced on a milestone found
at Lincoln with the distance of this stage given as in the Itinerary, fourteen
miles.**

From Lincolnshire, where it is known as Till Bridge Lane, this road
crossed the Trent and entered Nottinghamshire at Littleborough, the site of
Segelocum, where a Roman ford is still said to exist. There isa road hence
in a line with Till Bridge Lane, as far as the village of Sturton-le-Steeple, and

‘7< Essay towards the Recovery of the Courses of the four Great Roman Ways,’ apud Leland, Irin. vi,

116. “6 Beauties of Engl. and Wales, xii, (i), 5.

” Arch. Fourn. xiii, 42. 5° See Index.

5! See below, p. 17. See V.C.H. Leic. i, 217.

3 Wesseling, Vet. Rom. Itin. (1735), 474.3 Horsley, Brit. Rom. 439; Assoc. Archit. Soc. Rep. ix, 167 ;
Antig. XXxvili, 295. 4 See p. 19. 8 Tbid.

2 9 2

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

thence (after a short break through that village) past South and North
Wheatley, Clayworth, and Everton, to Bawtry, which, except for an occasional
turning or break, appears to show the line of the Roman road. At Wiseton
in Clayworth parish, at Everton, and at Scaftworth between Everton and
Bawtry, are traces of Roman occupation.” From Bawtry to Doncaster the
road may be assumed to follow more or less closely the line of the present
Great North Road, but this lies almost wholly in Yorkshire, after forming
the county boundary for two miles.

A Roman road is also said to have been noted in the parish of Gringley-
on-the-Hill, to the north of Clayworth,®* but this is probably without
authority.

(3) OTHER ROADS

The two roads already described are the only Roman roads in Notting-
hamshire which are attested by sound evidence. Numerous other roads have
been suggested, but for the most part only in order to fit in with preconceived
theories. With one or two exceptions, they may be briefly dismissed as
devoid of authority.

(i) Perhaps the most likely to be of Roman origin is that from Ollerton
along the east side of Clumber Park, and past Ranby to Blyth. This runs
practically in a straight line until it approaches Blyth, and forms the boundary
of parishes through almost all of its course. But no Roman remains have
been found along the line except a hoard of coins at Morton Hall in Babworth
parish, and coins at Blyth,” and these hardly supply evidence. Watkin con-
siders that the road may be traced from the ‘camp’ at Arnold, just north of
Nottingham,” along what is now known as Hollinwood Lane ;® but there is
practically no evidence to prove his view. There is indeed from Oxton to
Ollerton a ‘fairly’ straight road (the Old Rufford Road) running in a line
with the road from Ollerton to Blyth, through the parishes of Farnsfield and
Rufford, and it is possible that there is a southern continuation of the latter.
But whence it came and whither it went requires further investigation which
may or may not establish its Roman origin. The Oxton and Farnsfield camps,
formerly adduced in its favour, are now known to be British.

(ii) The Ordnance Survey maps trace the course of a road marked
as ‘Leeming Lane, Roman Road,’ from Mansfield northwards to Warsop.
This road would pass quite close to the villa at Mansfield Woodhouse," and,
if continued, traverse Worksop, Blyth, and Bawtry, to join the Ermine Street,
but except between Worksop and Blyth there is no modern track in this
direction. Mr. William Stevenson, who calls it ‘undoubtedly Roman,’ traces
it on the other side of Mansfield from ‘ that remarkable ridge known as Robin
Hood’s Hills’ at Annesley, and quotes Brewster as connecting that place by

* Stukeley, Itin. Cur. 93 5 Family Mem. of S. (Surtees Soc.), ii, 315 ; Codrington, Rom. Roads in Brit.
1533 Arch. Fourn, xxxvi, 283, xlili, 43 ; Stevenson, Bygone Notts. 4.

57 See Index. 58 See Index.

59 See Index. ® See Index.

% Arch. Fourn. xliii, 43 ; he appears to continue the course of this road as far north as Bawtry. The
old Ordnance Survey (sheet 82) marks a ‘Roman Road’ between Blyth and that town.

® See Index. * O.S. 6-in. xxiii, SW., xxiii, NW., xviii, SW.

* See p. 28. °° Bygone Notts. 14. ,

Te)

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

a road with Derventio (Little Chester) near Derby. The latter would
accordingly claim it as the north-eastern extension of Ryknield Street ; but
the Ordnance maps, as Mr. Stevenson points out, lend no countenance to such
an idea, and Professor Haverfield recognizes no road but the one leading
northwards from Little Chester to Clay Cross.* Thus the only portion of
this road which rests on anything like adequate evidence is that passing the
dwelling at Mansfield Woodhouse, which must have had some means of
communication with the outside world.

(iii) Watkin mentions a supposed road from Little Chester - (Der-
ventio) in Derbyshire, crossing the Trent at Sawley, and continuing by
Leake to join the Fosse at Willoughby.” Professor Haverfield accepts
the Derbyshire portion of this road,® but rightly points out that the traces
of a continuation, which Watkin says are ‘almost obliterated,’ are really
non-existent,

PrLaces oF PERMANENT OCCUPATION

(1) BROUGH (CROCOCOLANA) ”

The first Roman station on the Fosse, after it enters Nottinghamshire
from Lincoln, the Crococolana of the Itinerary, is now certainly identified
with the little hamlet of Brough, about one-and-three-quarter miles east of
Collingham.” According to Horsley affinity of sound induced some
antiquaries to fix it rather at Collingham,” in which parish Brough lies.
Dr. Wake says the name was first fixed by Gibson,” and Throsby seems
inclined to dispute the identification.” The distance from Lincoln is given
in one Itinerary as twelve miles, in the other as fourteen, the former being
the actual distance in English miles.

Crococolana seems to have been a place of some small importance. An
area of about forty acres is thought to have been inhabited, and the objects
discovered here show that it was more than a mere outpost or halting-place.™
No buildings or earthworks are now visible on the surface, and as long ago as
1732 Horsley wrote that ‘the ramparts at Brugh are levelled by the plow.’”
He goes on to say ‘many Roman coins have been found here. I purchased
one, which I take to be Pip, of an old man who had lived here many years,
and gave me an account of several things relating to this station. He told
me they often struck upon ruins in plowing or digging, and had a tradition of
an old town formerly standing there.’

%& V.C.H. Derb. i, 245.

8 Arch. Fourn. xiii, 43; see also Bennet in Lysons, Derd. p. ccxv ; Fourn. Derb. Arch. Soc. viii,
2133 Notts. and Derb. N. and Q. vi, 83.

8 Y.C.H. Derb. i, 246. He suggests that it served to connect Derventio with the navigable Trent, but
thinks it may have turned off to the villa at Barton (p. 23).

6 So the better MSS. of the Itinerary, as it seems. Other MSS. read ‘ Crococolano.’

7 O.S. 6-in. xxxi, SW. See section on Roads, p. 5.

1. Horsley, Brit. Rom. 439 ; Pointer speaks of a ‘camp near Long Collingham,’ which might be held to
imply Brough. Brit. Rom. 41 ; Gale, Anton. Itin. Brit. 102.

” Hist. of Collingham, 2; cf. Gibson’s Camden, i, 435 ; and Antig. xxxvill, 297.

8 Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. i, 374.

Thoroton Soc. Trans. x, 63 (Woolley). 7 Op. cit. 439.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Before Horsley wrote, Stukeley had been unable to discover any remains
of circumvallation, though he too heard much of foundations of houses and
walls,

. in digging too they find great foundations for halfa mile together on each side the road,
with much rusty iron, iron ore, and iron cinders ; so that it is probable here was an eminent
Roman forge. Across the road was a vast foundation of a wall, and part still remains : out
of one hole they showed me, has been dug up ten or fifteen load of stone ; so that it should
seem to have ben a gate: the stones at the foundation are observed to have been placed

edgewise and very large ones, but not of a good sort... . They told me some very large
copper Roman coins had been found here, and silver too, and many pots, urns, brick, &c. ;

they call the money ‘ Brough pennies.’ 7

In foot-notes he mentions other coins which he came across (including a
‘large brass’ of Faustina Junior), and he suggests the derivation of Collingham
from Colana, the later form of Crococolana.

Roman coins have at all times been very frequent, and Mr. T. Cecil S.
Woolley of South Collingham” has a very fine series ; but those noticed by
earlier writers are mostly of late date (a.p. 250-350).% A correspondent of
the Standard who signs himself ‘South Collingham’” mentions coins of
Hadrian (a.p. 98-117), Gallienus (a.p. 253-68), Maximian (A.D. 300),
Magnentius (A.D. 350) and Gratian (A.D. 375). Fragments of Roman
pottery were still abundant in Wake’s time (1867), and he tells a tale of ‘a
figure in gold’ found a few years before. His comment on Stukeley’s
reference to the inferior quality of the stone employed here is that it must
have been the limestone still quarried in the neighbourhood. But he adds,
‘I have seen some large blocks of excellent freestone, which have evidently
formed part of the buildings once standing at Brough.’ Watkin, writing
in 1877, quotes the Rev. G. Fosbery, late rector of South Collingham, to
the effect that coins and other remains were still occasionally found on the
surface.”

At Danethorpe Hill in the parish of South Collingham and at Potter
Hill in that of North Collingham, at the point where the Fosse Way enters
the county, human remains and coffins, and more recently fragments of
Roman pottery, are said to have been dug up,® and both have been suggested
as possible sites of outposts for guarding the camp at Brough. The latter is
described by Stukeley as ‘a high barrow or tumulus, where they say was a
Roman pottery.”* Of the last-named theory, however, the finds are no
confirmation, although Wake urged that it was implied by the name.

Recent excavations by Mr. T. Cecil S. Woolley have revealed far more
of the Romano-British occupation.® He has dug trenches over a considerable
area in two fields lying one on either side of the Fosse, at the fourth milestone
from Newark and twelfth from Lincoln. ‘The area and nature of the operations

are indicated in the accompanying plan.

7 Trin, Cur. 104. 7 See below.

78 Pointer, Brit. Rom. 41 ; Gibson’s Camden, i, 435 ; Wake, Hist. of Collingham, 2.

9 Nov. 1884. ® Op. cit. 4.

St j jan, 25 Jan. 1877.

82 Wie op ape 42 q ee Foire xliii, 17; Brown, ee of Notts. 121; Kelly, Dir. of Notts.

1904, 48. ; Itin. Cur. 103. .
& Matters are not improved by the suggestion that the word Crococolana has something to do with

usness by a writer in the Standard, 31 Oct. and 3 Nov. 1884.

‘crocks,’ put forth with apparent serio ct. an
ae his paper in Thoroton Soc. Trans. x (1906), p- 63 ff. The writer is also greatly indebted to

Mr. Woolley for personal assistance and information.
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A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Adjacent to the road and at right angles to it, part of the foundations of a
wall 5 ft. thick came to light, the foundations and lower courses of the wall
being of lias, above which was ‘stud and mud.’ An adjoining root 15° in=
dicated by flanged and covering tiles of the usual types, and the mud walls

were plastered inside and painted in various colours. Smaller buildings on.-

the site were probably temporary erections of timber. Mediaeval and
modern builders, says Mr. Woolley, have carried on their depredations to
such an extent, even underground, that reconstruction of the plan must be the
merest guess-work. His researches, however, indicate buildings of considerable
extent, as his plan shows ; but as to the nature of these structures it is difficult
to speak with confidence. The walls which have been unearthed on the west
side of the road are indicated on the plan at a. Mr. Woolley has since
acquired the adjoining field on the south-east, and a trial digging made by him
in the writer’s presence in October, 1906, yielded a few fragments of tiles.

The finds of movable cbjects made by Mr. Woolley on this site, ana
now preserved at his residence at South Collingham, are sufficient in themselves
to form a small museum. They were mostly obtained from the trenches dug
in the field on the east side of the Fosse (see plan). They include coins,
fragments of pottery, glass vessels, iron tools, objects in bronze, stone, bone,
and horn, and painted wall-plaster. Some of the pottery is illustrated in
fig. 1. The most noteworthy object is the bronze cheekpiece of a helmet
(fig. 2), ornamented with a design in relief: a woman standing by a horse
and holding the bridle in her left hand, while the right grasps a rope: in
the background is another rope, or perhaps cable-pattern encircling the
design. A curious deer’s horn pick was also found (fig. 1, B).

The coins,” with the exception of one Republican denarius of the Valeria
gens, the presence of which is doubtless accidental, extend from Domitian
(A.D. 81-96) to Gratian (A.D 375-83); they number 136 in all, and are all
from single finds. It is interesting to note that the finds of pottery may be
dated within the same limits. The earliest varieties belong to the end of the
Ist century. These include fragments of jars of black ware with ‘scored’
patterns of intersecting lines of lattice-work, done with a blunt tool, and
fragments of smaller jars of a hard brown ware with scale patterns worked in
relief ® (see fig. 1,c). Rather later are some fragmentary ‘ face-jars’ of grey
ware, on the front of which rude human faces are modelled in relief, one with
the mark of a trident on the forehead ® (see fig. 1, a) ; from similar finds in
Germany these may be assigned to the 2nd century. Of later date are jars
of polished black ware with indented vertical patterns or ‘ thumb-markings,’
not earlier than the 2nd century, red-glazed bowls with raised leaf-patterns in
thick slip, and vessels decorated in red and white paint, belonging to the 3rd
or 4th century.” There is also much Castor (Durobrivian)"” ware and other
that cannot be confidently dated.

Among the glazed red wares or serra sigillata, part of a hemispherical
bowl with figures, of Form 37 (Dragendorff) (see fig. 1, c) is interesting as

% Arch. lili, §73, pl. 55 (exhibited to the Soc. Anti. in 1902).

87 A list of these is given in Thoroton Soc. Trams. x, 71.

* In Germany these two varieties are found with coins of the latter part of the 1st century, e.g. at Trier,
Andernach, and Wiesbaden. Thoroton Soc. Trans. pl. 4, figs. 10-12.

See op. cit. pl. 1, figs. 7, 8, and pl. 2 (wrongly numbered 3).
Cf. Artis, Durobrivae, pl. 53, and specimens in B.M. from Northants.

Fic. 1¢.—Fracmentary ‘Face Jar’ rounp at Broucu Fic. 14.—Horn vusep as a Pick
FOUND aT BrouGH

Fic. 1c.—Sprectmens oF Porrery FOUND aT Broucu

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

bearing the name of a German potter recinvs F (Reginus fecit)” incised on the
exterior ; he worked at Tabernae Rhenanae (Rheinzabern in the Palatinate)
in the 2nd century. There are also fragments of the Gaulish Lezoux ware
of the same period, with figure subjects. The following marks of Gaulish
potters, mostly of the 2nd century, appear on plain red-glazed bowls® :—

Form 31 : GENITOR F Form 32 : ATTIANVs
IVSTI MA Form 33 : MAIoRIS
CASVRIM QVINTIM
MASVET SAMILLIM
. IAS FEC SEVERIANIO

: SCOPLIM
Uncertain form : VICTOR

There are also a tragment of a mortarium with cicvr F,* and an amphora
handle stamped ff - AVR: HER + PATE,” duo Aur(elii) Her(aclae) pate(r) [et
filius ex fighinis? . . . ‘the two Aurelii Heraclae, father and son, from the
potteries of (so-and-so).’

(2) EAST BRIDGEFORD (MARGIDUNUM.

The Itinerary station of Margidunum,” thirteen miles from Vernemetum
or Willoughby, and about the same from Crococolana or Brough, was identi-
fied first by Horsley with East Bridgeford. Some of his contemporaries (Gale,
Stukeley, and Salmon) had been led by the similarity of the name to assign
Ad Pontem to this parish. This theory assumes an error of seven miles in
the Itinerary, and, as Horsley argued, ‘the numbers and distances ought to
preponderate.’ As noted above, those writers were consequently forced to
place Margidunum at Willoughby.” Additional reasons in support of
Horsley are given by Throsby, who urges (1) the existence of an ancient
encampment, (2) the name of Burrow given to a field close by, (3) finds of
pottery and coins, (4) the distance from Willoughby.”

The village of East Bridgeford is itself about a mile to the north-west of
the Fosse, which runs right through the fields where the Roman station once
stood, the eastern half of it being in Car Colston parish. They are still
known as ‘ Burrow Fields, or ‘ Castle Hill Close,’ both being familiar names
in most of the early accounts of the place.” The site is marked on the 25-in.
Ordnance Survey, sheet xxxix, 15,'° and a plan of it is given in the article
on ‘ Earthworks,’ from which it will be seen that the lines of the camp and
its defences are still to be clearly traced.”

Op. cit. pl. 1, fig. 4. 8 Op. cit. p. 70. * Op. cit. pl. 3 (wrongly numbered 2), fig. 7.

% Op. cit. pl. 3, fig. 5; cf Corp. Inser. Lat. vii, 1331, 20 (from Catterick), and xv, 2561 (from the
Monte Testaccio, Rome), both more complete examples.

% See p. 5.

” Horsley, Brit. Rom. 438; Gale, Auton. Iter. Brit. 101 ; Stukeley, Itin. Cur. 105 ; Salmon, New Sure.
i, 294. This theory was again revived by a writer in the Standard, 31 Oct. 1884. See above, p. 5 ff.

% Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. i, 148.

%® E.g. Gough’s Camden, ii, 400 (all references to Gough are to the second (1806) edition); Magna Brit.
(1727), iv, 41.
a th The 26-in, map marks on the west side ‘coins and pottery found’; on the east ‘human remains
found.’ Stukeley seems to place Burrow Field on the west side of the road.

101 See V.C.H. Notts. i, 300.

1 The writer explored them in Oct. 1906, with the Rev. A. du B. Hill, vicar of East Bridgeford, guided
by an old map of the parish kindly lent by Mr. T. M. Blagg, F.S.A., of Newark.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Stukeley, who came here in 1722, saw near a spring in Burrow Field—

called Oldwork

The Roman foundations of walls and floors of houses composed of stones set edgewise in
clay, and liquid mortar run upon them: there are likewise short oaken posts or piles at pro-
per intervals . . . Houses stood all along the Foss; whole foundations have been dug up
and carried to the neighbouring villages. They told us too of a most famous pavement near
the Foss Way: close by in a pasture, Castle Hill Close has been a great building which
they say was carried all to Newark. John Green of Bridgeford, aged 80, told me that he
has taken up large foundations there, much ancient coin, small earthen pipes for water : his
father, aged near 100, took up many pipes fourscore yards off the castle and much fine free-
stone; some well cut or carved: there have been found many urns, pots, and Roman
bricks,13

He also ‘ heard of Roman pavements dug up there,’ and in a footnote to the
same edition he mentions the discovery on the Fosse Way of a fine brass con-
torniate of M. Aurelius, with heads of that emperor and Commodus, found
in an urn with one or two others. His description of the site is illustrated
by a drawing showing the relative position of the village and station.

Horsley corrected Stukeley’s identification of the site from Ad Pontem
to Margidunum.™ Another account speaks of the lordship in Car Colston
parish ‘ called in old writings ‘“‘ Aldwerck,” and at this time ‘ Oldwarke”

. where foundations of solid wrought stone are found, the Grounds there-
about bearing the Signs and Memory of old Fortifications, viz. one Close
still having the name of ‘ Castle-Hill,” and two other of ‘“ Castleton-closes,”
as also a Spring called Oldwark spring, and the adjacent Ground on the other
side the Foss-way in Bridgford parish—called the Burrough-Field, where
ancient Coins have been found.’** Gibson speaks of a ‘fair silver coin of
Vespasian’” found here.’

Apart from these no other details seem to be forthcoming to support or
supplement Stukeley’s account until the middle of the rgth century. In 1857
Mrs. Miles, wife of the rector of Bingham, began to explore the Burrow
Fields, on the surface of which she had for a long time noticed fragments of
pottery. Afterwards she described the results of her excavations to Mr. Wat-
kin for his article on the Roman remains of this county.”

The circumvallation of the camp was still clearly marked, especially at
the north-east angle, and the cemetery seems to have lain outside its south-
east angle. Several fields on each side of the Fosse were full of remains,
especially a ploughed field on the west side through which runs the bridle-
path known as ‘ Newton Street.’ ‘Here,’ says Mrs. Miles, ‘we gather
every year numbers of specimens of pottery lying on the surface, besides deer-
horns, bones, balls, or “ runnings ” of lead, flue-tiles,'® stone tiles, zesserae, and
thousands of pieces of pottery of different colours, qualities, and materials.
Many of these are worked in patterns, and the pieces of Samian ware have hunt-
ing subjects, leaves, &c. on the ground, and we have a considerable number of

03 yin, Cur. 105, with pl. go.

104 See above, p. 6. The doctor was misled by the s:milarity of the ancient and modern names. _ Brit.
Rom. 438 ; see also Gibson’s Camden, i, 435 3 Salmon, New Surv. i, 294.

108 Mag. Brit. iv, 413 see also Pointer, Brit. Rom. 53 ; Thoroton, Hist. of Nots. (ed. Throsby), i, 148 5
Notts. and Derb. N. and Q. iv, 183 (Dec. 1896).

108 Camden, loc. cit.; Mag. Brit. iv, 40.

107 Nott. Daily Guardian, § Feb. 1877; Arch. Tourn. xiii, 19. 18 Ge below.

109 See Index s.v. Bingham for a possible instance.

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

potters’ marks.’ Several of the fragments of ‘Samian’ ware showed traces of
having been repaired with rivets by the original owners, and one bore a repre-
sentation of Pegasus, another an eagle with thunderbolts. Of the potters’
marks only three are recorded by Watkin: rio (probably Florentinus, a Ger-
man potter of the 2nd century); NDE (probably Indercillus, a Lezoux potter
of the same date); and the rim of a mortarium with the letters Gvpv,
[Lu]gudu[ni factum], i.e. ‘made at Lyons.’ 1”

On one occasion Mrs. Miles found two perforated prisms of red corne-
lian ; coloured wall plaster, broken flanged tiles, Roman mortar, a knife
handle, and oyster shells are also mentioned, as well as coins of Vespasian
(A.D. 70-9), Carausius (a.p. 287-93), and Julian (a.p. 352-62). Stukeley’s
story of buildings here was corroborated to some extent by an old inhabitant
who had seen a considerable portion of a wall, and it was a common practice
with the residents to dig up the stones of Roman dwellings for building pur-
poses. The soil appears to have been full of the débris left by many years of
human occupation, and it is probable that systematic excavations would have
revealed important remains.

Near the southern side of the camp area a bridle path leaves the Fosse
Way at right angles in a north-westerly direction, and after crossing the lane
leading into the village, its course can be traced in the same direction through
private grounds as far as the edge of the steep bluff overlooking the Trent.
It is known as Newton Street or Bridgeford Street, and is marked with the
latter name on the Ordnance Survey map (25-in. xxxix, 15). The writers
who placed Ad Pontem here™ naturally saw in this the Roman road leading
to the supposed bridge. On the north side of the present road to the ferry
are numerous traces of earthworks, including a prominent mound, which
appear to be the remains of a mediaeval stronghold of the ‘Castle mount and
bailey’ type.'”

(3) WILLOUGHBY ON THE WOLDS (VERNEMETUM) "8

In this parish, at the southern extremity of Nottinghamshire, just
where the Fosse Way leaves that county for Leicester," lies the site of
Vernemetum (Verometum) (see plan, fig. 4). Most antiquaries have agreed
in fixing here one of the sites of the sixth and eighth routes of the Antonine
Itinerary, and the judgement of Horsley, who first pronounced it to be
Vernemetum, is now generally accepted.”

No Arch. Fourn. xxxv, 290. Three potters’ names occur in Britain with this formula: Albinus, Urbanus,
and Ripanus (see Corp. Inscr. Lat. vii, 1334).

NI See p. 6.

nN? ‘They are not mentioned in V.C.H. Notis. i, in the article on Earthworks, but seem to belong to
Class E.

"3 So the best MSS. of the Itinerary. The word is good Celtic and means ‘great sanctuary.’

™ OS. 25-in. li, 9.

"8 Brit. Rom. 437. He refers to Stukeley’s account given below, and gives a more correct account of the
distances from the adjacent stations than Gale and other writers have done. Gale and Salmon placed Margi-
dunum here and Vernemetum in Leics. but their surmises are hopelessly at variance with the recorded
distances. Anton. Iter. Brit. 96; New Surv. of Engl. 2893 see above, p. 5; Burton, Descr. of Leic. 58,
appears to follow Camden in placing Vernemetum at Burrough in Leics. ; he explains the name as Gaulish for
‘fanum ingens,’ ‘a great temple ’ (cf. Horsley, 438) quite correctly.

2 a7 3

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

One of the earliest and certainly the fullest description of the place
comes from Stukeley, who visited Willoughby—or Margidunum, as he
believed it to be—in 1722:— ™

When arrived over against Willoughby on the wold on the right, Upper and Nether
Broughton on the left, you find a tumulus on Willoughby side of the road, famous among
the country people: it is called Cross Hill . . . the name of Broughton set me to work to
find the Roman town . . . after some time I perceived I was upon the spot, being a field
called Herrings . . . Here they said had been an old city called Long Billington . . . The
soil is perfectly black, though all the circumjacent land be red, especially north of the valley
upon the edge of the hill and where most antiquities are found. Richard Cooper, aged 72,
has found many brass and silver coins here; there have been some of gold. Many mosaic
pavements have been dug up: my landlord, Gee of Willoughby, says he has upon ploughing
met with such for 5 yds. together, as likewise coins, pot-hooks, fire-shovels and the like
utensils, and many large brass coins which they took for weights, ounces and half-ounces,
but upon trial found them somewhat less. Broad stones and foundations are frequent upon
the sides of the Foss. The ground naturally is so stiff a marl that at Willoughby town
they pave their yards with stones fetched from the Foss Way. At Over and Nether
Broughton and Willoughby too the coins are so frequent that you hear of them all the
country round.

i
362 24
“

Fic. 4.—Pxan oF THE Sitz or VeRNEMETUM
(From the Ordnance Survey)

4° Trin. Cur. 106, with plan on pl. gt ; see also Dickinson, Antig. in Notts. i 87, who identifies Verne-
metum here, and Antig. xxxvili, 296. PVeae

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

The brief allusions of other 18th-century antiquaries (Horsley, Gibson,
Gough, Pointer, Throsby) do little more than echo this account, though
Gough adds on Stukeley’s authority that urns were often dug up on the site."
In 1788 it was visited by Bishop Bennet of Cloyne and Mr. Leman, who
were tracing the course of the Fosse. After passing the tumulus they found
that the road descended the hill to a field called ‘ Herrings’ or ‘ Black Field,’
the site of Vernemetum."* The bishop mentions that coins were found
here, but gives no particulars. The tumulus itself, which seems to be a
Celtic work,"* is marked on the Ordnance Map, but not named, nor do the
other names recorded by Stukeley appear there. The drawing given by
Stukeley ° shows the relative position of the village, the Roman station,
and the Fosse as seen from the little eminence marked as Wells Hill.

A later writer mentions a tessellated pavement found at the church in
1829 and afterwards incorporated in the floor of the north aisle, but it is
doubtful if this was Roman.

Mr. Bellairs, writing in 1898, aims at placing Vernemetum at Six Hills,
two miles to the south over the border, on a supposed cross-road from Der-
ventio by Leake to Durolipons in Huntingdonshire,” but the received
identification of Willoughby is defended against him by Mr. Whatmore.”

(4) LITTLEBOROUGH (SEGELOCUM)

Besides the three villages or stations on the Fosse Way, there is a
fourth site in Nottinghamshire which we are justified in regarding
as a place of permanent occupation in the form of a ‘statio’ or a village.
Curiously enough this, although the smallest, has actually yielded the most
remains; but as at Brough, there is now little or nothing visible above the
surface.

The identification of Littleborough with the Segelocum or Agelocum—
as it is less correctly spelt—of the sixth and eighth routes of the Antonine
Itinerary, is due to Camden.** He had once been inclined to place this
station at Idleton or Eaton,” but the situation of Littleborough on the
military way, and the Roman foundations and coins found there induced him
to alter his opinion. A branch of the great Ermine Street, leading from
Lincoln to York, used to cross the Trent here by a Roman ford,” and the place
is, according to the Itmera, fourteen miles from Lindum, equivalent to twelve
or thirteen English miles. In 1879 a Roman mi//iarium was found at Lincoln,
the inscription on which ends with the letters a‘L’s‘m'P* x1. This, according
to several writers, with whom Professor Haverfield concurs, is to be read as

7 Bateman in Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. viii, 186, refers to this ‘on the authority of the imaginative
Stukeley.’ Horsley, Brit. Rom. 437; Gibson’s Camden, i, 435 ; Gough, ibid. ii, 401 ; Pointer, Brit, Rom.
41; Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. i, 71, 149.

"8 Nichols, Hist. and Antig. of Leic. i, p. cxlvii ; Antig. xxxvili, 296.

"9 Fourn. Brit. Arch, Assoc. viii, 186; cf. V.C.H. Notts. i, 315.

12 Op. cit. pl. gt. 41 Bailey, Ann. of Notts. iv, 366. ™ See above, p. II.

"3 Notts. and Derb. N. and Q. vi, 83, 993; see also V.C.H. Leic. i, 217.

4 Britannia (ed. 1607), 413 ; Gough’s Camden, ii, 404; see also Wesseling, Vet. Rom. Itin. 4743
Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. (ed. Throsby), iii, 292 ; Horsley, Brit, Rom. 434; Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. viii, 3925
Antiq. xxxviil, 295.

™ Britannia (ed. 1586), 311. 198 See above, p. 9.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

A Lindo Segelocum millia passuum quattuordecim, thus agreeing exactly with the
Itinerary.”

At the ford, to which allusion has been made, the bank was sloped away
on either side to form an easy descent to a raised causeway, 18 ft. wide, in
the bed of the river. The greater part of this, which was held up by strong
stakes and paved with stone, was removed in 1820 to facilitate navigation,
but at low tide large loose stones may still be seen in the channel.” Frank
Lambert, a servant of the Trent Navigation Company, who took part in the
removal of this ford, described it as ‘ paved with rough square stones, and on
each side of this road piles 10 or 12 ft. long were driven into the bed of the
river, and pieces of timber from one to the other, giving support to the
whole. The timber was all black oak . . . but soon rotted when exposed
to air.’ There is still a ferry here, and a portion of the paved descent was
visible on the Nottinghamshire side as late as 1868, when Dr. Trollope
wrote on Ermine Street. He thought the causeway probably dated from
the time of Hadrian’s visit to Britain in a.p. 120, and recorded the fact that
a large bronze coin of this emperor, bearing a figure of Justice on the reverse,
was found in a cleft of one of the piles.

Camden, in describing the site in his 1607 edition, writes as follows :—

The river collecting itself runs from hence due north among a number of villages, and
has nothing remarkable on its banks till it comes to Littleborough, a small town strictly
answering to its name ; where as the most usual ferry is at present, so it was formerly that
famous station or mansion mentioned more than once by Antoninus, and called in different
copies AGELOCcUM and sEGELocuM. ‘This I had before sought for in this neighbourhood
without success, but am now clear I have found it, both by its situation on the military way,
and because an adjoining field shows evident traces of walls, and daily in ploughing yields
innumerable coins of Roman Emperors, which being often turned up by the hogs (guss
quia porci eruncando saepius detegunt), are called Swines Pennies (forcorum denarios) by the

country people.

In the early part of the 18th century foundations and pavements were
seen in the river bank, from which Roger Gale, crossing in 1701, had extracted
a‘ Samian urn’ containing burnt bones and a coin of Domitian.” According
to Gale and Horsley the Romans had a ‘camp’ on the east side of the river,
where coins were frequently found, but no remains of it were visible in 1723
when Mr. Ella, vicar of Rampton, described the antiquities of Littleborough
in a letter to Stukeley.* The station itself is generally believed to have been |
on the west side of the Trent, where traces of a wall and fosse still exist (see
plan, fig. 5)."* Stukeley says it was of square form and surrounded only by a
ditch.* Great foundations of buildings lay near it in a field between the
village and the river, and part of the channel, according to the inhabitants,
had once been occupied by the Roman town.'* Some of the materials of

7 Arch, Fourn. xxxvi, 283 ; xxvii, 139 3 Assoc. Arch. Soc. Rep. xv, 13 § Ephem. Epigr. vii, 335, no. 1097 ;
Antig. xxxvili, 295 ; Codrington, Rom. Roads in Brit. 153.

128 Assoc, Arch. Soc. Rep. ix, 167 3 Arch. Fourn. xiii, 12.

129 Nott. Daily Guardian, 20 Feb. 1877 3 Arch. Fourn. loc. cit.

130 esac, Arch. Soc. Rep. ix, 168 ; Stevenson, Bygone Notts. 4.

81 Britannia (160 13, translated in Gough’s ed. (1806), ii, 396.
33 Gale, a I e Brit 96 ; Stukeley, Zin. Cur. 93 § Horsley, Brit. Rom, 434 ; Fourn. Brit. Arch. Asso.

vill, 187. 2 q
” 133 See below. ; ; ia a ig Fourn. xiii, 12.
135 Loc. cit. See the plan or view given by him, pl. 87. id.
20

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

which this had been built are still to be seen in the walls of the parish
church, where bonding-tiles are worked into the masonry.”

Coins seem always to have been plentiful on this site, as Camden noted.”
In Mr. Ella’s time the majority of those found belonged to the Lower Empire,
though there were also some of earlier date. Stukeley ™ describes some of
which that gentleman sent him an account, including a ‘ consecration-piece ’
of Vespasian (sc), with the mole at Ancona on the reverse ; one of Hadrian
with seated figure of Britannia ;™° coins of Constantine with vrgs Roma and
the twins, or with consTANTINOPOLIs ; and others of Aurelius and Faustina

SCALE 6"5cI MILE.

Fic. 5.

Puan oF SITE oF SEGELOCUM, SHOWING POSSIBLE INDICATIONS OF Roman SETTLEMENT

(A.D. 161-80), Gallienus (a.p. 253-68), Tetricus (a.p. 268-73), Vic-
torinus (A.D. 265-67), Carausius (A.D. 287-93), Constantine (a.p. 306-37),
Constantius, Crispus (A.D. 317-26), and Allectus (a.p. 293). He had also
seen ‘a great many imperial coins between Nero and Gratian’ found in the
neighbourhood.

‘There are also found,’ says Mr. Ella, ‘but very rarely, Roman signets
of agate and cornelian ; one of the fairest and largest I ever saw was found at

87 Nott. Daily Guardian, 18 Jan. 1877; Arch. Fourn. xlili, 14; Stevenson, Bygone Notts. 5 ; Bailey, Ann.
of Notts. iv, 386. :

88 See above. 189 Op. cit. 93.

“© Of these two coins the first isa Trajan, about a.p. 102, the mole being probably the bridge over the
Danube (Cohen, Monnaies frappées sous PEmp. Rom. ii, 73, 542 ; cf. Stevenson, Dict. of Rom. Coins 643); for
the other see Cohen, op. cit. ii, 121, 197. He also mentions a coin of Trajan with a ‘Genius,’ ie. Roma,
seated on a trophy, holding a ‘ Victoriola’ (a.p. 104-10; Cohen, op. cit. ii, 59, 391), and a coin of Con-
stantine IT with aLemannia pEvicra (Cohen, op. cit. no. 1).

M! Op. cit. 93 ; Bibl Tupog. of Brit. iii, 126 ff. ; Family Memoirs (Surtees Soc.), iii, 144 ; Horsley Brit.
Rom. 434; Assoc. Arch. Soc. Rep. ix, 168.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

this place.’ The only complete piece of pottery was ‘ of a singular make, with
an Emperor’s head embossed upon it, the same with that which Dr. Gale had
given us the figure of, found at York.’ Coarse grey ware was also met
with, which Mr. Ella considered to have been made at ‘ one of the most noted
Roman potteries in this island, Santon near Brigg in Lincolnshire.’ '*
Mr. Hardy possessed ‘a large urn with the face of a woman on the
outside.’ It is singular that no traces of tessellated pavements should have
been found.

In 1718 two wrought stones of coarse gritstone, one part of an altar, the
other supposed to be sepulchral, were dug up from a sand-pit near White’s
Bridge. The discovery is recorded by Gough, Ella, and Stukeley. The last-
named says : ‘two altars, handsomely moulded, are set as piers in a wall on the
side of the steps that lead from the water-side to the inn; on one is the
remnant of an inscription LIs ARAM DD.’* —_ Ella says they were placed so that
the inscriptions were not visible ; further that ‘the one appears to be a
sacrificing altar from the Discus on the top ; the mouldings are all entire and
clean as if new cut, yet no inscription in the field, tho’ it is very smooth and
plain.’ He supposes an inscription had been purposely erased ; but notes
the Lis ARAM Dp. Watkin, in 1877, repeats this, suggests that Lis is part of
the word cance/lis, and adds that the altar was exhibited to the Society
of Antiquaries in 1759.“* He contributes the further information
that at Osberton Hall there was a Roman altar, bearing an inscription
not yet deciphered, and found at Littleborough. It appeared to him different
from that found in 1718. He ‘thought there was tom on the capital,’
and RAT in the fifth line (on a sunk panel on the face of the shaft),
He gives the measurements of this as 3 ft. 2 in. high, 22 in. broad at the
capital, and 164 in. broad at the centre.

Subsequently Professor Haverfield suggested that these two were one and
the same, and having examined the Osberton stone found it was so. ‘The
stone,’ he says, ‘is a well preserved sandstone altar, 3ft. 1 in high, with
~, apanel 15in. square. The only traces

ia of lettering are some faint marks fill-
= aw] ing two-thirds of the last or pen-
oe ty} ultimate line: tiparyy. No trace of
> >| 10M is visible, and the seven letters
S| given were merely scratched in, not
= a necessarily by a Roman hand. For
a = the rest, the panel was smooth as if

LVILLTLSVCLVYCIVagl 5 it had never been inscribed.’ An

Fic. 6.—Drawinc oF Ocu.ist’s STAMP FOUND illustration of the altar is given in

at LiTTLEBOROUGH fig. 3.

™ Gale, Anton. Iter. Brit. 23. It isa ‘Face-urn’ like one from Lincoln in the British Museum, the upper
part roughly modelled as a human head.

43 Compare PAi/. Coll. (1681), 4, 88, and Stanford’s Guide to Lines. (1903), 222.

M4 Stukeley, op. cit. 94. It is probably the one described above.

“5 Gough’s Camden, ii, 404 ; Bibl. Topog. of Brit. iii, 128 ; Stukeley, Itin. Cur. 94 3 cf. Family Memoirs
(Surtees Soc.), iii, 149 3 Assoc. Arch. Soc. Rep. ix, 168.

M6 Soc. Antiq. MS. Min. i, 88. M7 From Mr. F, J. S. Foljambe, M.P.

“8 Nort. Daily Guardian, 18 Jan., 5 Feb. 1877 ; Arch. Fourn. xxxi, 352; xxxv, 63; xiiii, 13; Ephem. Epigr.
ili, 120, 71, iv, 199, 673 3 White, Worksop, 99 ; Thoroton Soc. Trans. v, 24.

49 Bohem. Epigr. vii; 335, 00. 1097 ; Arch. Fourn. xlix, 232.

(HONVJA] NOLUIESC) HoOnowg LV anno
HOMOUOMITLLIT LY INIYT, NI GNAOd ‘uvLTy NvWoY—'f ‘org ‘LAaN1dp{ NVWOY dO aOaIdMATHD—'z ‘OMT

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

One more inscription was found at Littleborough before the close of
the 18th century. The Gentleman's Magazine for 1772 contains a letter from
‘C.D.’ dated Southwell, 20 August, inclosing a drawing of a small, flat, square
piece of stone, which he supposed to be a ¢essera or token used by a Roman
centurion in setting the nightly guard. It is, however, obviously an oculist’s
stamp, bearing the names of the medicines prescribed and perhaps also that
of the oculist himself.' The stamp is now missing but the drawing of it
given by ‘C.D.’ (fig. 6) enables us to read it :

(a) LvumteLveiverver I. A[nn]i ? stact(um) at clari(tatem) (‘ for clearness of the eye’).

(5) BDIA3ORICV . . dia[ps]oricu(m)
(c) sTaTvs Sta[c]tu[m ?
(a) Vacat.

TOPOGRAPHICAL INDEX

ARNoLD.—T wo miles to the north-west of this village is a large camp, situated on the highest
ground in Sherwood Forest (508 ft.), and commanding the smaller camps near Farnsfield and
Oxton. The hill on which it stands, formerly known as Holly Hill, is marked on the
Ordnance Survey (6-in., xxxiii, SE.) as ‘Cockpit Hill, site of encampment’ [L4rch. x, 378,
with plan ; Arch. Fourn. xlili, 41]. Whether ever occupied by Roman forces or not, the
camp is at all events of rectangular form [V.C.H. Notts. i, 292, with plan].

AsKHAM.—An urn containing bones and some silver and copper coins was found in 1850 by
Mr. I. Smith Woolley in a cutting of the Great Northern Railway. Fourteen silver coins
from this hoard were exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries, ranging from Julius Caesar
(B.c. 49) to Domitian (a.D. 96) [Proc. Soc. Antig. (Ser. 1), ii, 100].

AVERHAM.—On Mickleborough Hill, to the north of the village, W. Dickinson saw ‘traces
of Roman fortification, and in its relative situation symptoms of a Roman iter’ (see pp. 7, 36 for
the same writer’s view that a road led thence over the supposed bridge at Winthorpe to
Brough) [Dickinson, Antig. in Notts. 93 ; no description or details given].

BaswortH.—In 1802 ninety-one Roman coins, sixty-two copper and twenty-nine silver, were
found about 200 yds. to the south of Morton Hall. Avstone set up on the spot to mark this
is indicated on the Ordnance Survey maps. The coins were exhibited at Nottingham in
1899 by their present possessor, Mr. W. H. Mason, who described the find to the Thoroton
Society and pointed out that the site was only a quarter of a mile from the Roman road
from Ollerton to Blyth. Coins have also been found at Osberton, just on the other side
of this road. ‘The Morton Hall coins range in date from a.D. 54 to a.D. 180, and include
examples of Nero, Vespasian, Domitian, Domitilla, Trajan, Hadrian, Sabina, Antoninus
Pius, M. Aurelius, and the two Faustinas; the majority are coins of Trajan and Hadrian
[Information from Mr. W. H. Mason of Morton Hall]. [Bailey, Ann. of Notts. iv,
196; R. White, Worksop, 38; Thoroton Soc. Trans. iii, 20, 24; Ordnance Survey 6-in.,
xiv, NW.]

Barron-in-F apis.—During the first half of the 19th century tessellated pavements were, it is said,
sometimes met with beneath the soil of a yard on the glebe farm. In a field close by, which
from time to time showed square and comparatively barren patches on its surface, large stones
and remains of walls were also occasionally found. It does not seem, however, that any
attempt was made to investigate the site before April 1856, when the parish clerk struck
against the edge of a tessellated pavement in ploughing here. Excavations were immediately
begun under the direction of the Rev. Mr. Wintour, then rector, and part of a fine pave-
ment was disclosed one foot below the surface. This, which consisted of an oblong rectangle,
15 ft. by 10 ft., was supposed to have formed one-fourth of the whole pavement. It was
made up of red, white, and blue tesserae arranged in an outer border of red and then one of

10». 415 ; Rom. Brit. Rem.i,260. Gough was similarly puzzled by it (Camden ii, 404, pl. 14, fig. 5).
181 Corp. Inscr. Lat. vii, 1321; xiii (3), 597, no. 10021, 204 (Espérandieu, Signac. medic. orac. no. 84) ;
Monthly Fourn. Med. Science, xii (1851), 248 (Simpson, Arch, Essays, ii, 280), pl. 3, fig. 8 ; Arch. Fourn. vii, 358 ;
xliii,14 (with cut) ; Fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xx, 175 ; Philologus, xiii (1858), 164, no. 73 ; Grotefend, Stempel
der rim. Augenartzen, 125, no. 108 ; Revue Archéologique, xxii (1893), 28 ; Nott. Daily Guardian, 18 Jan. 1877.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

blue, with a double line of white inclosing a brilliant scroll border in which all three colours
were interlaced. Inner lines of white and blue separated this scroll border from the centre,
which was filled witha great variety of geometrical figures grouped round a large ellipse. The
floor of tesserae was laid in a bed of cement with a great depth of black artificial soil beneath
it. Much charred wood was found about the site, which, with the absence of other relics,
makes it probable that the villa was destroyed by fire. No attempt seems to have been made to
investigate any other part of the field, or even to complete the excavation of this pavement [Nort,
Daily Guardian, 23 Feb. 1877 ; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 31 5 Gent. Mag. 1856, i, 506 ; Rom. Brit.
Rem. i, 259; Briscoe, Old Notts. (Ser. 2), 141]. At no great distance from the villa is a
supposed fortification known as Brand’s Hill or Brent Hill [Ordnance Survey, 6-in. xlv, NE. ;
V.C.H. Notts. i, 312], which has been thought to show traces of Roman occupation.
Gough speaks of coins found here, as do Reynolds and Throsby, apparently on his authority
[Camden, Brit. ii, 401; Iter. Brit. 422; Hust. of Notts.i, 101]. Watkin concluded that it
was Roman! [Arch ‘Fourn. xliii, 32] ; but the generally received opinion, upheld by Mr. Steven-
son in his article on Earthworks [V.C.H. Notts. i, 312]? is that we have here probably remains
of prehistoric terrace-ploughing. It is not, however, impossible that the Romans occupied
a position here subsequently, as suggested by Laird [Beauties of Engl. and Wales, xii,
t. 1, 3, 187.

eaten ares of a Roman road are said to be discernible, also ‘remains of an ancient building’
[Lewis, Topog. Dict. of Engl. (7th ed. 1849)].

BincHam.—lIn the Castle Museum at Nottingham is a tubular earthenware tile, said to be from
Bingham, but more probably from Mrs. Miles’ excavations at East Bridgeford (p. 16); also
other objects found with it [Information from Prof. F. Granger].

Birpwortu.—A bronze key found here [Sketch of Sherwood Forest, pl. 4, fig. 2, p. 25], may be
Roman (cf. MANSFIELD).

BiytH.—Roman coins were found here in 1692 [Gough’s Camden, ii, 407 ; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 36].
See also ToRworTH.

BRIDGEFORD, East.—Site of Margidunum ; see above, p. 15.

BripcEFrorD, West.—Throsby quotes from Deering to the effect that West Bridgeford may have
been a Roman station, owing to its proximity to the Trent, and its distance of not five itinerary
miles from the Fosse, and of eight or nine miles from East Bridgeford. The arguments seem in-
adequate ; but apot of Roman coins appears to have been found at Wilford close by (vy. sub vace)
[Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. (ed. Throsby), ii, 11; Deering, Nottinghamia vetus et nova (1751),
287]. A ‘stone man’ on a slab at the chancel door of the church is maintained by
‘Camulodunum,’ writing in a local magazine, to be a figure of a Roman centurion in a toga,
and not a Crusader, as popularly believed. This theory is, however, stated by Mr. W. P. W.
Phillimore to have not the slightest authority [Notts. and Derb. Notes and Queries, ii (Feb.
1893), 75 22].

BrouGH.—Site of Crococolana ; see above, p. 11.

BroucHton, Upper. See WILLouGHBY, p. [7.

Catverton.—Nearly two hundred denarii, chiefly of Trajan and Hadrian (a.p. 98-138), were
found in 1797 in a broken pot [Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. (ed. Throsby), ii, 147].

CarBurTon.—Stated, but without authority, to be a Roman settlement [Kelly’s Dir. 1904, p. 40.]

Car Coiston.—Part of the station of Margidunum is in this parish ; see under BrRipGEForD, East
(p. 15)

CLaRBOROUGH.—A Roman marble bust from this site, lent by Mr. Henry Hill, was exhibited at Notting-
ham, Jan. 1899 [Thoroton Soc. Trans. iii, §1, no. 354]. This bust is illustrated in fig. 7, from a
photograph kindly supplied by the owner, who states that it was found by a labourer some fifty
years ago, and that he acquired it at the sale of the effects of the late Canon Brookes of
Nottingham, formerly of Clarborough. No other Roman remains have been found here, but
the discovery seems to be authenticated ; it is certainly remarkable that such an exceptionally
good piece of work, ranking with the best examples of Roman sculpture found in Britain,
should have come to light in this unexpected place. The bust isabout 14 in. high, and appears
to date from the 3rd century. It represents a clean-shaven elderly personage in military
costume, but it is doubtful whether it is an emperor, though the close-cut hair and the
features suggest Balbinus (a.p. 238).

CLayworTH. See WISsETON.
CoitincHaM, Nortu.—Roman pottery has been frequently met with, and stones supposed to be

Roman are worked into the walls of cottages and gardens [fourn, Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli, 84].

1 He compares similar terraces near Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland,
? See the plan there given. He classes it among uncertain earthworks (Class X).

Fic. 7.—Roman Porrrair Busr (TuHirp CrEnrury aFTER
Curist), FounD aT CLaRBOROUGH

Fic 8 —Rematns or Roman Bripce oveR THE TRENT, FOUND NEAR CROMWELL IN 1885

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

About 1840 a large number of skeletons were found between the railway station and Potter
Hill (see p. 12), and according to one report Roman coins with them [Wake, Hist of Colling-
ham, 42; Kelly’s Dir. 1904, p. 48]. An amber and a stone bead, ‘ British or Roman,’ were
found in afield near the High Street [Wake, loc. cit.].

CoLLINGHAM, SouTH.—Quantities of Roman pottery, including a few fragments of Gaulish ware
and a mortarium, are said to have been found here [Wake, Hist. of Collingham, 43; Kelly’s
Dir. 1904, p. 48]. In this parish is the station of Crococolana (see under BRrouGH, p. 11).
See also CRoMWELL for the bridge across the Trent here.

Corcrave.—Four skeletons lying in separate graves were found in the line of the Fosse Way
about 1836; with one was a third brass of Carausius (a.p. 287-93), and it is said that two
iron spears, varying in length from 16in. to 18in., were deposited with each interment.
Other Roman coins from the neighbourhood are also reported, but not in detail. Bateman
regarded this as a Saxon burial, but Mr. Reginald Smith considers it Roman of the 5th
century [fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. iii, 297 5 viii, 190; Bailey, Ann. of Notts. iv, 397; V.C.H.
Notts. i, 197].

At Lodge-on-the-Wolds in this parish Stukeley, in 1722, saw the Roman pavement of the
Fosse [Itin. Cur. 106 ; see above, p. 8].

CromweLi.—lIn this parish is the site of a Roman bridge crossing the Trent (Ordnance Survey,
6-in. xxv, SE.] a little way below a bank or island called the ‘Oven.’ Part of this bridge
seems to have been cleared away early in the last century to improve the navigation of the
river. Its piers were described by Frank Lambert, an old servant of the Trent Navigation
Company, who had assisted in its removal, as of ‘lozenge-shape,’ formed by trees laid on the
bed of the river, and the inclosed space filled in with Coddington stone laid edgeways.
Mr. Watkin, who obtained this information for his series of articles on Roman Notts.,
thought it probable that the construction of this bridge was Roman, and compared the shape
of the piers with those at Chesters
and Corbridge in Northumber-
land [Nott. Datly Guardian, 20
Feb. 1877; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 26].
His belief was confirmed seven or
eight years later, when a fresh
discovery was reported in October
1884. Two piers, apparently of
an ancient wooden bridge, were
discovered in the course of dredg-
ing operations between the parishes
of Cromwell and South Colling-
ham, and after some observations
and measurements had been made,
they were blown up by dynamite.
A photograph ? of the remains taken
at the time is here reproduced
(fig. 8). The foundations were of
wood set in Ancaster, or, as a later
correspondent reported, Yorkshire,
limestone mixed with Yorkshire
flagging, and from the quantity of
stones dredged up below the bridge
it seemed likely that the piers them-
selves (which must have been six
or seven in number, with a length
and a span each of 29 ft.) were of
masonry, ‘the wooden crib form-
ing a foundation, and the upright
timbers acting as bond-timbers.’
Some of the timber was in very
good condition, and the mortar was
hard and adhesive. The walings
and balks were of hard black
oak, the former fastened across Fic. 8¢.—Pran or Roman Bripcz aT CroMWwELL

'
‘
'
1
!
‘
‘
'
'
'
'
'
i

8 For this photograph we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. T. Cecil S. Woolley, of South Collingham.
2 25 4

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

through the centre balk by wooden tie-pieces with octangular heads, through which wedges
were driven. The abutment appears to have been washed or carried away. Another
account says :—

The piers consisted simply of two stout piles, protected each by a fender, set in a species of strong
cribwork filled with rubble masonry. The strength of the cribwork is shewn by its lasting to this
day, and the lightness of the superstructure (of which there are of course no traces except the mortices
in the sleepers) was such that it would enable the bridge to be destroyed in a few hours and rebuilt
again in a few days.

A number of human skulls and bones were dredged up near the same place [Standard, 28 Oct.,
5 Nov. 1885 ; ‘fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli, 84 (see for various additional details) ; Antiquary,
x, 274]. The first announcement of this discovery was followed by other correspondence,
dealing mainly with the vexed question of Ad Pontem (see p. 6), and a summary of conflict-
ing opinions on this point was given by Mr. Compton [Fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli, 43 ff;
see also Standard, 31 Oct., 3-5 Nov. 1884]. Somewhat later a plan of the piers of the bridge
and a note on the excavations were communicated to the Association named by Mr. Wheldon
of the Trent Navigation Society [Fourn. xli, 83, with plan; see fig. 8a]. It seems to have
been generally agreed that the bridge was of Roman construction, made of stout piers with a
roadway of wood, and the mention by one correspondent of a balk of black oak bearing the
numerals ctu® inclined Mr, Watkin to believe that part of the roadway still lies embedded in
the channel of the river [Standard, 5 Nov. 1884; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 27].

Eatron.—Eaton or Idleton was at first identified by Camden with Agelocum or Segelocum, after-
wards shown to be Littleborough (see p. 19) [Camden, Brit, (ed. 1586), 3113; (ed. 1607), 413;
Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. (1677), 398 ; ibid. (ed. Throsby), iti, 257].

Ecmanron.—Earthworks here have been thought to be part of a series of defences extending from
a Roman camp at Laxton, but they appear to belong to a mediaeval castle mount of type E;
a few small bronze coins, chiefly of Constantine, have been found [Arch. ‘fourn. xxxviil, 427 ;
V.C.H. Notts. i, 306].

Epperstong.—A hoard of nearly 1,000 small copper coins was found in 1776, all of the 3rd century;
the emperors represented are Gallienus and Salonina, Postumus, Claudius Gothicus, Victorinus,
the Tetrici, Quintillus, Carausius, and Aelianus (a.D. 254-86). The last-named is said to
have been a remarkably fine specimen, with (on the rev.) Victory and Fame and vicTorRIA Avo.
[Merrey, Remarks on the Coinage of Engl. pp. 6, 101 ; Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. (ed. Throsby),
ili, 40; Beauties of Engl. and Wales, xii (1), 273]. On Holy or Solly Hill in Epper-
stone Park Dickinson places the site of a Roman camp [Antig. in Notts. i, Expl. Obs. 7 ;
Arch. Fourn. xiiii, 40]. It is rectangular in form and may be Roman [V.C.H. Notts. i, 301
(type C.)].

Everton.—A hoard of 600 Roman coins found in 1885 ina field between Everton and Bawtry,
all of copper except a few that appear to have been washed with silver ; the emperors repre-
sented were from Valerian to Diocletian (a.D. 253-305) [Num. Chron. (Ser. 3), vi, 245].
See also ScaFrWORTH.

Farnpon. See above, p. 7.

FarnsFIELD.—Remains of an encampment, inclosing 40 acres, at Hill Close near Hexgrave Park,
are described by Major Rooke, who considered them Roman; he states that the ditch and
vallum are perfect in places though obliterated elsewhere. Dickinson, however, regarded its
irregular shape and the absence of remains of walls or fortifications as a proof that it was not
Roman, and Bateman also considered it British ; Mr. Stevenson classes it as a hill fortress
(type B) [O.S. xxix. NW.; Arch. ix, 200; Dickinson, Antig. in Notts. i, 288; Rastall,” Hist.
of Southwell, 366 ; Fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. viii, 183 ; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 39 ; Kelly’s Dir.

1904, p. 531; V.C.H. Notts. i, 295].

At Combs Farm, 3} miles south-west of Hexgrave Park, is a smaller camp, 249 yds. by
66 yds., which both Rooke and Dickinson accepted as Roman; Mr. Stevenson considers it a
promontory fortress (type A). ‘The west and part of the south side of the ditch and val-
lum remained in 1788, and also a circular vallum of earth about 40 yds. in diameter, a
short distance to the north. Rooke saw here fragments of Roman bricks and tiles and
a large brass coin much defaced, and Dickinson mentions Roman weapons found here. It

‘ Mr. Wheldon notes that stone like that used for the foundations may be seen in cottage walls and gardens
at Collingham (see above).

5 Jt is almost incredible t
pret this numeral as 152 A.D. !

i Pius !
sa tp ea the surname formerly borne by W. Dickinson, when he published this earlier work

hat the correspondent alluded to should actually have endeavoured to inter-
On this he builds a theory of the date of the Fosse Way in the reign of

in 1787.
: 26

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

may therefore have been occupied at one time by the Romans. The camp commands an
extensive view over Sherwood Forest, and the road from Southwell to Mansfield, which has
been thought Roman, passes between this and Hexgrave [Arch. ix, 200, pl. 113 x, 380;
Dickinson, op. cit. i, 290, Expl. Obs. § 3 Beauties of Engl. and Wales, xii (1), 2713 Arch.
Fourn. xii, 40; V.C.H. Notts. i, 291 ; O.S. xxviii. SE.].

Near the first-mentioned camp was found a Roman pig of lead (fig. 9), from the Derbyshire
mining districts, in 1848. It was formerly at Thurgarton Priory, but was acquired by the British
Museum in 1879. It is inscribed c+ IvL* PROTI* BRIT * LVT * EX * ARG, C. Ful(i) Proti
Brit(annicum) Lut(udarense) — ex
arg(entariis), It measures 194 in,
by 38 in. and weighs 184 1b. Lu-
tudarense is explained by Professor
Haverfield as referring to the lead
mines of Lutudarum (Matlock) ; ex
argentariis denotes that the lead was
mined as containing silver which
was separated in the smelting.
Professor Gowland states that this
pig has been treated for the extrac-

PBRYELV PE

tion of silver (V.C.H. Derd. i, SE Sa ——————

231, fig. 30, no. 3; Hubner in Fic. 9.—Pic or Leap, Hexcrave Park, FarnsFieLp
Corp. Inscr. Lat. vii, 1216; Arch.

Fourn. xvi, 36; xliii, 405; Fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. v, 793 viii, 55 ; (New Ser.) iv, 275 ;
Gent. Mag. 1849, i, 5183 Proc. Soc. Antig. (Ser. 1), i, 259; Wright, Celt, Roman, and
Saxon (6th edn.), 295; Yates in Somerset. Arch. Soc. Trans. viii (1858), 11; Arch. lvii, 402
(analysis of metal by Gowland) with pl. 57, no. 4].

FuinrHam.—A Roman vase, 5$in. high, was dug up from a ditch at the depth of 3 ft. in 1776,

and was at one time in the collection of Mr. John Disney at the Hyde, Ingatestone, Essex. It

is described as a ‘grey terra cotta vase of sun-dried clay, broken at the lip ; on the shoulder,

a rough raised border, folded inwards in a sort of wave.’ See fig. 10 [Gough’s Camden, ii,
401; Museum Disneianum, ii, pl. 93, fig. 4, p. 226; Arch.
Fourn. vi, 85; Gerhard, Denkm. u. Forschungen, 1849,
Anzeiger, 55; Inventory of Disney Vases, 278 (in Greek and
Roman Departmental Library, Brit. Mus.)]. Roman urns
and coins have also been reported at different times [fourn.
Brit. Arch. Assoc. viii, 187].

GaTEFoRD. See Worksop.

Gransy.—A stone altar of the Roman period was dug up in
the churchyard in 1812, and was afterwards in the posses-
sion of Andrew Esdaile, but has now disappeared. He
describes it as 10 in. high and § in. square, with rude
columns at the corners, and a hollow at the top; on the
sides are carvings ; on the front ‘a Roman figure,’ with
helmet and toga, sword in left hand; on the sides ‘ hiero-
glyphics,’ ie. the head of a lamb with the body and wings

Fic. 10.—Roman Vasz FROM FLINTHAM of a dragon; on the back ‘a finely-cut vegetable figure’

(Disney Colt.) [Esdaile, Rut. Mon. 50; Godfrey, Notes on Churches of
Notts. (Bingham Hund.), 201 ; information also from Rev.

A. du Boulay Hill of East Bridgeford]. It is possibly in this parish that a find occurred in
1786 of ‘several Roman coins in a field near Belvoir, Nottinghamshire, some with the head
of Adrian (a.D. 117-38) and others with that of Vespasian’ (a.D. 70-9) [Gent. Mag. 1787,

i, 83].

GrincLey-on-THE-Hitt.—Traces of a Roman road have been noted [Family Memoirs of Stukeley,

(Surtees Soc.), iii, 150], but the road from Littleborough to Bawtry passes over a mile away
to the south-west through Clayworth.

HarwortuH.—In 1828 three silver Roman coins, of Hadrian, Antoninus, and Faustina (a.p. 117-68),

with part of a vase and pieces of pottery, were found on the site of a supposed Roman station
at Merton. It is said that the outlines of an octagonal building could be traced here in the
middle of the last century [Lewis, Topog. Dict. ; Dickinson, Exp/. Obs. p. 2 (under Bawtry) ;
Nott. Daily Guardian, 16 Mar. 1877 ; Bailey, Ann. of Notts. iv, 362 ; Arch. ‘Fourn. xliii, 35].
The Ordnance Survey marks a ‘Roman bank’ at Serlby Park in this parish, presumably the
rectangular camp of type C described in the article ‘Earthworks’ of this History [O.S.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

25-in. vi, 9; V.C.H. Notts. i, 302 ; see also Scroopy]. For the Roman villa near here see
under STYRRUP. ;

Hayton.—At Tilne, a hamlet in this parish, Gough records the discovery of ‘a Druid amulet of
an aqueous transparent colour with yellow streaks, and many Roman seals on cornelians.
Mr. Watkin thinks that the amulet must have been of Roman workmanship, and that this
find is identical with one recorded by Laird, who speaks of ‘a stylus and several agates and
cornelians with inscriptions and engravings,’ dug up in this parish [Gough, Camden, ii, 405 ;
Arch. Fourn, xliii, 36; Brayley, Beauties of Engl. and Wales, xii, (1) 309].

HExGRAVE. See FARNSFIELD.

Hickiinc.—A supposed Roman station, 2} miles from the Fosse [Bailey, 4nn. of Notts. iv, 30;
Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. (ed. Throsby), i, 147; Kelly’s Dir., 1904, p. 763; Lewis’s Topog.
Dict. places it on Standard Hill]. In 1777 an urn containing nearly two hundred denarii was
turned up by the plough. Among the emperors represented were Vespasian, Domitian,
Trajan, and Hadrian, also the two Faustinas (a.D. 70-175), and a few coins of Julius Caesar,
Augustus, and Tiberius, once preserved in a local collection, may have come from the same
hoard. ‘Throsby describes a coin of Augustus with pivi F. avG on oby. and Apollo on rev.,
with acr for Actium® [Merrey, Remarks on the Coinage of Engl. pp. 6, 100; Thoroton, Hist,
Notts. (ed. Throsby), i, 147; ii, 143, pl. 10, figs. 1-3 ; Reynolds, Iter. Brit. 445].

Home Pierrepont.—An ancient cemetery found here in 1842 seems to have been Saxon rather
than Roman; but with the Saxon objects were one or two undoubtedly Roman, viz. a brooch
in the form of a spotted quadruped, and part of a thin yellow glass bowl about six inches in

diameter, with the figure of a bird, and part of an
inscription sEMPER (fig. 11) [‘fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc.
iii, 298 (with figs.) ; vill, 190; Arch, xxxvii, 471;
V.C.H. Notts. i, 195].

Hucknat, Torkarp.—An ancient burial place found in
1870 included thirty-five skeletons in five graves, but
no objects found therewith, nor any other indication as
to the date of the interment [Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2),

v, 35).

PrzrrEPont Brough and Mickleborough Hill (see AVERHAM), found

traces of a small encampment, which he assumed

to be Roman, but on very insufficient evidence. He was evidently led astray by his

belief in a bridge at Winthorpe, and supposed road from Brough to Ad Pontem (South-

well) [Antig. in Notts. i, 104, Expl. Obs. 6]. A large tumulus and trenches were visible

in 1867 [Wake, Hust. of Collingham, 5]. Roman coins are sometimes found in the parish
[ibid. 84].

Laxron.—Roman coins have been found, among which was a denarius of Trajan (98-117) [Arch
Fourn. xxxvili, 427]. See also EGmanron.

LirrLeBporoucH.—The site of Segelocum ; see above, p. 19.

MansFiELD.—Rooke gives illustrations of a few bronze articles found here or in the neighbourhood ;
they include a key which may be Roman (cf. BiipwortH, p. 24), a fibula of Roman 2nd-
century type (cf. SkEGBY, p. 34), which appeared to have been ornamented with enamel or
precious stones, and Bronze Age objects; the key was found at Berry Hill. Rooke calls
them all Roman [Sketch of Sherwood Forest (1799), 25, pl. 4, figs. 1, 4-6]. In 1788 coins
of Vespasian (A.D. 70-9), Antoninus and M. Aurelius (a.p. 138-80), and Constantine
(a.D. 306-37) were in his possession, all found in the town [Arch. ix, 203; Thoroton,
Hist. of Notts, (ed. Throsby), ii, 312].

In 1849 a hoard of between 300 and 400 denarii, many in a fine state of preservation,
was discovered on the railway towards Pinxton. They included coins of Augustus, Vespasian,
Hadrian, L. Aelius (a.D. 135-8), Antoninus, M. Aurelius, Commodus (a.p. 180-92), Septi-
muus Severus (A.D. 193-211), and Geta (a.p. 209-12) [Fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. v. 160,
3753 Arch. Fourn. xliii, 38].

Rooke believed that a Roman road ran from Southwell to Mansfield. See also p. 10
for a supposed road from here to Warsop (Leeming Lane).

MansrFietp WoopxHousE.—The discovery of a villa in this part of Sherwood Forest, where no
Roman road or station was supposed to exist, was made by Major Rooke in the spring of
1786. His attention was first attracted by some tesserae about an inch square, called by the
: There is a silver coin of g.c. 12 answering to this description ; see Cohen, Monnaies frappées sous I’ Emp.

Rom. i, 84, 144.

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A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

country people ‘ fairy pavements,’ which had been found about a mile from the village, in a
field from which stones and bricks were occasionally removed for agricultural purposes,
Observing that several bricks from this spot were Roman, he determined on its exploration,
At the beginning of the excavations walls were disclosed about a foot below the surface, and
then several rooms of a villa of the corridor type, the entrance to which seems to have been

by a corridor, 54 ft. long and 8 ft. wide, on the east side (see plan, fig. 13,4). Remains ofa
: fine tessellated pavement were

unearthed in the centre room,
and fragments of wall-plaster
painted in stripes of purple,
red, yellow, green, and other
colours were found here and
in five smaller rooms (plan, 8),
in which were also ashes and
traces of fire. The floors
in these latter were of opus
Signinum (lime, clay, and
pounded tile). In the corridor

a a ee ae ee ee ee eee were the remains of another
exo 7 FEEYs —_tessellated pavement, most of
which had been destroyed by j
. :

Ee se Si HEDcEe 6 Feer

Fic. 13.—Pxtan oF Roman Vitta aT Mansriztp Woopnouse

a limekiln of recent date. It consisted of a border
of tesserae of light stone colour surrounding squares or
grey tesserae, all alike being nearly one inch square.
Here again the walls were painted. At the south end
of this corridor was a hypocaust (£), and adjoining
it a small room with a doorway leading into another
24 ft. square, supposed to have been the kitchen. The
top of a lamp, and part of a colander were found here,
and there were marks of fire on the floor. The end
walls of the hypocaust and of the room at the north
end of the corridor were 5 ft., the outer walls 23 ft., the
party-walls 13 ft. thick. Fourteen feet from the north-
west corner of the villa was founda small building with
flat stone paving. The pavement in the centre room
(fig. 12), described by a contemporary writer as ‘ the
most curious and beautiful of the sort ever beheld in
this part of the kingdom,’ appears to have been covered
over by a building erected by Mr. Knight; but in
1797 this had become ruinous, and the pavement in
a neglected condition [Arch. viii, 363 ff., plates 22-6 ;
Gent. Mag. 1786, ii, 616; Rom. Brit. Rem. i, 259;
Thoroton (ed. Throsby, Hist. of Notts.), iil, 319;
Morgan, Rom. Brit. Mosaic Pavements, 121 ; Nott.
Daily Guardian, 23 Feb. 1877; Arch. Fourn. xiii,
28 ff. (abstract of Rooke’s account) ; Ordnance Survey,
25-in. xxii, 8, marked as ‘site of VILLA ROMANA ae
In the following autumn Major Rooke discovered
another building which he calls the villa rustica, or
part of the house appropriated to the use of servants, the first being in his opinion the villa
urbana, or master’s residence. However this may be, there is no doubt that the second dwell-
ing (see plan, fig. 13, B) was closely connected with the first ; for though no actual junction
was discovered, it was only 10 yds. distant from its north-east end, from which it stood in
a diagonal line. The wall of the west front, near the so-called villa urbana, was 40 ft.
long, the side walls each 142 ft. The space inclosed was occupied by two groups of rooms
at the east and west ends, with a court between. Of the seven rooms at the west end
two (mM and N on plan) had painted walls, but no tessellated Pavements were found, and

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

most of the floors seem to have been of cement. These measured respectively 18 ft. by
17 ft. and 17 ft. by 11 ft., and were separated by a thick double wall from the room marked L.
At the east end only one room had painted walls, the colours in which were very bright ; at
this part of the building were two hypocausts (Plan Q and R ; see figs. 13 and 14), with their
fireplaces and pillars of tiles supporting the upper floors, also a bath and cellars. A floor of
large flat stones was removed in clearing out one hypocaust, and the flues beneath were found

Fic. 14.—Hypocausts 1n Roman Vitra, Mansriztp Woopuouse
(From Archaeologia)

to be filled with earth. ‘The flues here, which were very perfect, had a sort of chimney of
coarse baked clay at the end of each. In clearing the other and larger hypocaust, some large
pieces of cement, of lime and pounded brick, possibly fragments of the floor above, were
found. In two very small rooms, perhaps cellars, at this end of the villa, were found fifteen
small copper coins : one of Salonina (a.p. 263-8), one of Claudius Gothicus (a.p. 268-70),
and three of Constantine (A.D. 323-37), the rest illegible. Two oblong bases of pillars, with
grooves on the top, were fixed in the inside walls of these small rooms, and these were thought
by Major Rooke to be altars. His view was subsequently upheld by the discovery of a capital
of an altar on the spot. ‘T'wo walls projecting from the smaller hypocaust may have belonged
to an open porch. Roofing slates were also found with holes pierced for fixing [Arch.
loc. cit., q.v. for further details and measurements ; see also ibid. ix, 203, with pl. 12 (views
of hypocausts)].

A hundred yards south-east of what is styled the villa urbana were two tombs; of one
only the foundations remained, but the side walls of the other were found, and a cement floor.
Beneath this was a vault, at the bottom of which stood an urn containing ashes, and some
unburnt human bones lay near it. The floor of this tomb consisted of three dressed stones, and
its roof must have been of red tiles. Between the two tombs was a pavement 7 ft. square, with

a kind of pedestal
ii uc

in its centre. On
See ——
ee =

——SSS=
———————

clearing away the
SS |
earth fragments SSE"

were found of an
inscribed stone or
titulus sepulcralis,
which must have
stood thereon, but
the inscription is
incomplete (fig.
15) [4rch. Fourn. = ===
xliii, 29; Arch,

ETM RTC fi if
viii, 372; Corp. RS 4

Inscr, Lat. vii, 3 Hit 0 in!
197]. Fic. 15.—Inscrirrion round 1n Vitta at Mansrietp Woopnovyer

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Among the smaller finds on this site were various fragments of pottery, a small Gaulish
bowl stamped atsvs [Arch. Fourn. xxxv, 289], bricks and tiles with impressions of animals’
feet, part of a large stag’s horn, an ivory pin, parts of a fibula, and another ornament, and
fragments of hand-mills. In a room which he calls the apodyterium, Major Rooke found a
kind of ‘rubber’ of pale grey colour, a fibula, fragments of a floor of pounded tile and lime,
and the altar-capital above mentioned [Arch. ix, 203 ff., pl. 12].

When Major Rooke reported these discoveries to the Society of Antiquaries, he expressed
the opinion that this villa, though unquestionably Roman, was not connected with any station.
Twelve years previously an urn filled with denarii had been found, from which he had seen
two coins of Antoninus (4.D. 138-61), and the vicinity of an ancient road (see p. 10)
may also indicate Roman occupation in the neighbourhood. But the camp at Winny Hill in
this parish, described by Rooke as Roman, forming one of a chain between Southwell and
Chesterfield, is classed by Mr. Stevenson among the hill-forts (type B) of circular form, and of
British origin, and though the Romans may have made use of it, they cannot be claimed as
its originators [A4rch. ix, 193 ff, pl. 10 ; Dickinson, op. cit. Introd. 3 ; Beauties of Engl. and
Wales, xii, (1), 3993 Arch. Fourn. xiii, 41; V.C.H. Notts. i, 296).

Misrerton.—In this parish are the remains of the old Bycar Dyke, said to have been a Roman
canal connecting the Trent with the Idle [Stevenson, Bygone Notts. 1].

Newark.—Roman urns are said to have been found here from time to time by the side of the
Fosse Way, the date of the first recorded discovery being 1722, when four were found lying in
a straight line and at equal distances. Burnt bones and ashes, and what seemed to be part of a
bronze fibula were found in one, in another was ‘a small brass bar about an inch and a half
long’; others contained square clay beads supposed to be British. A pot of Roman coins is
said to have been dug up near them [MS. Min. Antiq. Soc. i, 68 ; Dickinson, Antig. in Notts.
ii, 2 ff. ; Stukeley, Itim. Cur. 104; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 41, quoting Gough (op. cit. ii, 403),
who probably only relies on Stukeley]. Watkin relates that six more urns were found in 1826
in digging the foundations of a house ; and a much larger number, between thirty and forty
of which were complete, were unearthed on the left side of the Fosse, just outside the town, in
1836-7. They were placed upright in the ground, and contained calcined human bones ;
Bateman, however, showed that these were all of Saxon type [‘fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. viii,
184, 189 ff. with pl. 27; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 41; V.C.H. Notts. i, 201].

Stukeley endeavoured to prove that Newark was the site of a Roman city called Eltavona,
and an entry in his diary also records the finding of urns, probably those mentioned above.
He saw many fine coins ranging in date from B.c. 2 to A.D. 353, and mentions in particular a
fine large brass of Trajan with a trophy and captive,’ found on the river bank ; the commoner
kinds were so abundant as to be current in the town as half-pence [Family Memoirs (Surtees
Soc.), ili, 150 ; see also Dickinson, loc. cit.]. Horsley says that Newark arose out of the ruins
of Ad Pontem and Crococolana ! [Brit. Rom. 439]. Dickinson enlarges on these and other
discoveries, with the view of establishing the Roman origin of Newark, deriving the imaginary
name Eltavona from the River Tavon or Devon, and refers in particular to the roads supposed
to run from Newark to Southwell and Mansfield, and southward towards Stamford [see
V.C.H. Rut.i, 87]. Of coins, he had in his possession one of L. Piso, master of the mint to
Augustus, dated B.c. 2, and others of Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, L. Verus (a.p. 98-163),
and Magnentius (a.D. 350-3), the latter with the monogram of Christ. He also mentions
silver coins of Domitian (a.p. 81-96), Volusenus (4.D. 251-4) and Postumus (a.p. 258-68),
a brass of Faustina (a.p. 138-41), and a coin of Antoninus Pius (a.p. 138-61), with
Britannia on the rev. Another collection belonging to Mr. John Herring included specimens
of Nero (a.p. 54-68), Trajan (a.p. 98-117), Faustina (a.p. 138-41), and 3rd-century
emperors [Antig. in Notts. i, 105; ii, 2-16; Expl. Obs. 6]. Apart from the finds of coins,
which may be accounted for by the proximity of the Fosse Way, there does not appear to be
the slightest evidence for regarding Newark as a Roman station, or as having any existence
in pre-Saxon times. Stukeley’s Eltavona is, of course, as great an absurdity as Dickinson’s
Sidnaceaster.

Newsreap.—A bronze key found in making a road through Sherwood Forest was thought by
Major Rooke from its shape and patina to be of Roman workmanship, but this seems doubtful ;
it resembles that found at Mansfield (see p. 28) [Sketch of Sherwood Forest, 25, pl. 4, no. 33;
Arch. x, pl. 34, p. 380].

NortincHam.—A hoard of Roman coins was ploughed up near the town in 1698. Throsby, who
obtained some specimens, described them as common, and mostly of Tetricus (a.p. 268-73),
though there were others of Gallienus (A.D. 253-68), Victorinus (A.D. 265-7), and Claudius
Gothicus (a.p. 268-70) [Phils. Trans. xx, 208].

7 Gold coins of this type were struck by Trajan in a.p. 116-17, in commemoration of Parthia capta.

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

In 1890 two red earthenware vessels, about 4 in. high, resembling small amphorae, were
found in a ditch between Warser Gate and Carlton Street, and appear to be Roman ; they
are now in the Castle Museum [Proc. Soc. Antig. (Ser. 2), xiv, 24 5 Antig. xxv, 127]. A
Roman (?) lance-head from excavations in the town was shown at an exhibition in 1899
[Thoroton Soc. Trans. iii, 50, no. 349).

Gale identified Nottingham with Causennae of the Itinerary, and maintained that its caves
were the work of the Romans, a theory revived 150 years later by Mr. Dutton Walker [Jver.
Anton, Brit. 95 ; Thoroton, Hist. of Notts. (ed. Throsby), ii, 7 ff. ; Deering, Nottinghamia Vet.
et Nov. App. 286 ; Proc. Soc. Antig. (Ser. 2), viii, 75 ff. ; Briscoe, O/d Notts. (Ser. 1), 118 ff.].
The latter found traces of a sepulcrum commune and a columbarium in two of the caves, one of
which still showed from 150 to 160 cells for the reception of cinerary urns.

Stevenson states that Nottingham was intersected by a Roman road leading from Leicester
to York, ‘known here as Stoney Street” [Bygone Notts. 41]. For this, of course, there is
absolutely no authority, nor is there any adequate reason for regarding Nottingham as a place
of Roman occupation.

Osperton.—In December 1853 a pot containing 940 bronze coins of the emperors of the Constan-
tine family was dug up near the third milestone from Worksop. The coins are now in
Mr. Foljambe’s possession at the Hall [White, Worksop, 98; Arch. Fourn. xiii, 37 3 Thoroton
Soc. Trans. v, 11]. See also BaBworTH.

For the Roman altar now preserved at Osberton Hall see p. 22, under LITTLEBOROUGH.

Oxron.—A camp in this parish (O.S. 6-in. xxxiii, NE.) is described by Major Rooke, under the
name of ‘Oldox’ (i.e. ‘Old Works’), as a ‘small exploratory camp, very perfect,’ with a
double ditch 154 yds. long on its north-eastern side. From its shape it would appear to be a
hill-fortress of British origin (type B), but it may have been occupied by the Romans [Arch.
ix, 201, pl. 11; x, 381 ff, pls. 34 D, 35 5 Fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. viii, 185-8 ; Arch. Fourn.
xliii, 40; V.C.H. Notts. i, 298]. Rooke also examined another ‘ancient work,’ 314 yds. by
67 yds., with ditch and vallum still recognizable on the north and west sides, in a field called
‘Lonely Grange,’ about half a mile east of Oldox. This, too, he regarded as Roman, and its
form appears to be more rectangular than that of Oldox [O.S. xxxiii, NE. and xxxiv, NW. ;
Arch. x, 379, pl. 34 B.; V.C.H. Notts. i, 303, described as of type C}.

At both places coins were found, but quite defaced. In 1765 a vessel full of Roman
coins, some ‘of a scarce class,’ was dug up at Robin Hood’s Pot (now Robin Hood Hill)
[Bailey, Ann. of Notts. iii, 1277; Arch. Fourn. xiii, 39].

PLumrreE.—A considerable number of Roman coins found in this parish were seen by Deering
before 1751, but he gives no details [Nottinghamia Vetus et Nova, 287 ; Thoroton, Hist. of
Notts. (ed. Throsby), ii, 11].

RaGNALL.—There are traces of a Roman encampment at Whimpton Moor, where a stone coffin con-
taining a skeleton, with another skeleton beside it, was found in 1834, and remains of foundations
of buildings are said still to exist [ Nott. Daily Guardian, 16 Mar. 1877; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 41].

Rurrorp.—This place is stated to have been ‘anciently a Roman encampment’ [Kelly, Dir.
1904, p. 522]. It is, at all events, close to a possible Roman road (see p. 10).

SAXONDALE. See SHELFORD.

ScaFrworTH.—Fragments of pottery and part of a spear were found in 1750. Some ancient
intrenchments, visible at the close of the 18th century, were supposed, in consequence of this dis-
covery, to be the remains of a Roman station on the branch of Ermine Street leading from Little-
borough to Doncaster, but they belong to a British fortress (type B) [Thoroton (ed. Throsby),
Hist. of Notts. iii, 323; Bailey, Ann. of Notts. iii, 1250; Arch. Fourn, xliii, 36; Lewis,
Topog. Dict. ; V.C.H, Notts. i, 303]. ;

Scare, SourH.—A piece of rough earthenware, supposed to have formed part of the rim of a
Roman urn, was found opposite the church in 1865. Foundations of buildings are frequently
met with in the village [Wake, Hist. of Collingham, 53]. : :

Scroopy.—A ‘Roman bank’ mentioned here [V.C.H. Notts. i, 313], is apparently identical with
the supposed camp at Harworth [v. supra]. ;

SrLsron.—About 1830 an earthenware vase containing Roman silver coins was found 18 in. below
the surface, in a field. ‘The coins were well preserved, and covered the period from Nero to
Trajan (A.D. 54-117). There were also some Republican coins, and a counterfeit coin of the
reign of Vespasian (a.D. 70-79) [Lewis, Topog. Dict. of Engl. ; Nott. Daily Guardian, 16 Mar.
1877; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 39]. ; Apes

SHELFORD.—At Saxondale, which is now part of this parish, the compiler of Magna Britannia
(1727) states that Roman (?) stone coffins have been found. ‘They are more likely to be from
the site of the old parish church, destroyed in the reign of Henry VIII [AZagna Brit. iv, 53].

SHiREOAKs. See Worksop.

2 33 5

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

SkEGBY.—A Roman bronze fibula of 2nd-century
type was found here, and is now in the
British Museum, acquired 1873; length
2lin. See fig. 16.

SouTHWELL.— There seems to be reason to
suppose that this ancient city, the ‘ Civitas
Tiovulfingaceaster’ of Bede, contains the site
of a small Roman settlement. Dickinson,
indeed, sought to prove that it was the
missing station of Ad Pontem (see p. 7),
‘the centre of four great roads from Lincoln,
Leicester, Nottingham, and Mansfield,’ but
in interpreting that term as ‘ the station on
the road to the bridge’ (sc. from Mar-
gidunum), he only darkens counsel, as the
bridge must then be looked for west or
north of Southwell [Dickinson, Antig. in
Notts. i, 88 ff. ; Expl. Obs. 5, with map at
end of part i; cf. Horsley, Brit. Rom. 439; and Gough, Camden, ii, 402].

Dickinson, however, records the discovery in 1793 of a tessellated pavement five or six

feet below the surface on the east side of the archbishop’s palace, with which were found some
fragments of urns. Shortly before, a small vault, composed almost entirely of Roman bricks,
had been found on the north side of the church, and when from time to time some of the
more ancient buildings were pulled down, it was generally seen that Roman bricks formed part
of their foundations [Dickinson, loc. cit.; Brayley, Beauties of Engl. and Wales, xii (1), 256).
A few Roman coins had been found in the town before Dickinson’s time, two of which he
describes as small copper coins of the reigns of Constantius and Magnentius (a.D. 291-312)
ibid.].
‘Though there are no records of Roman remains in that part of the town known as the
Burgage, which Dickinson believed to be a camp occupied by the Romans, he may be correct
in that supposition, but it is of oval, not rectangular, form [see op. cit. for a plan of the course
of the fosse ; also Y.C.H. Notts. i, 304, where it is classified as a camp of Class C]. Dickinson’s
account is corroborated by that of a more unprejudiced antiquary, Major Rooke, who was
present when some discoveries were made by the vicar of Southwell in his garden. Stones,
apparently forming part of a wall, were found 5 ft. below the surface, and near them fragments
of painted plaster, a few pavement tesserae, and some pieces of Roman tiles resembling those
found at Mansfield Woodhouse (p. 32) [A4rch. ix, 199].

Another pavement has been found quite recently in the gardens at the residence, but the
writer who describes it states that, though pre-Norman, it is certainly not Roman. In this he
appears to be wrong. The pavement is described as ‘ of rude and coarse work, simple in design,
viz. square spaces of about eleven inches each way, composed of stone tesserae of a greyish-
blue colour, surrounded by a double row of red tesserae made of chopped-up tile relieved by
four of the blue tesserae at each corner of the square.’ Rough as it is, it is clearly Roman ;
such pavements are not found in mediaeval buildings. This writer further maintains that
there are no grounds for ascribing a Roman origin to Dickinson’s pavement of 1793, or to
another found thirty years ago in the garden of the house in Vicar’s Court. He mentions tiles
found here ‘of peculiar form, having both their edges turned up and shallow ornamentation on
their surfaces ;’ they are of the ordinary Romano-British types [A. M. Y. Baylay in Thoroton
Soc. Trans. v, 58 (with plate)].

STANFORD.—Camden states that Roman coins have been found here [Brit. (1607), 412 (not in
1616 edition, but see Gough, op. cit. ii, 395); see also Reynolds, [ter. Brit. 463; Lewis,
Topog. Dict. ; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 38).

Stoke, East.—There seem to have been traces of an encampment or post of some sort visible in
the 18th century. Stukeley mentions ‘a Roman camp opposite to the church,’ and Throsby
refers to a site here [Family Memoirs of Stukeley (Surtees Soc.), iii, 151 ; Thoroton, Hist. Notts.
(ed. Throsby), i, 148].

Styrrup.—lIn the Styrrup portion of the hamlet of Oldcoates, about two miles north-west of Blyth,
the remains of a Roman villa were found in 1870 during the erection of a Roman Catholic
church in the Manor Field. It had been noticed that Roman roofing-tiles and bones of

Fic. 16.—Bronze Fisuta FROM SKEGBY
(BaitisH Museum)

° Mr. W. H. St. John Hope informs me that similar coarse Roman pavements have been found at
Silchester.

ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

animals were frequently turned up as the work proceeded, and this led to the digging of some
trial pits in May of that year. ‘The discovery was described to the Archaeological Institute
by the architect, Mr. S. J. Nicholl, who also exhibited plans of the building. Only three
rooms seem to have been excavated. In the principal room, which measured 20 ft. by 17 ft.
was a tessellated pavement with a central design supposed, on somewhat insufficient grounds,
to represent Theseus in the Cretan labyrinth. It was composed of very small tesserae of the
local grey limestone and red grit arranged in borders of various patterns, chequers, scrolls
squares, and triangles, inclosing a labyrinth pattern. The latter is said to be almost identical
with one found at Caerleon ;° in the centre, which is much injured, the lower part of a
human figure in an attacking attitude remained.

A projection at the south end, which, like the sides of the room, had been finished by a
red plaster moulding to form a plinth, might, Mr. Nichols thought, have been an altar. Near
a second room, paved with grey tesserae, was a passage where traces of charred wood, fragments
of coloured plaster, and roofing-tiles were found. The third room uncovered had no pavement.
Elsewhere were found walls, a stone trough full of hardened lime, fragments of wall-paintings,
and roof-tiles. Among the broken pottery and tiles in the trial pits was a floor covered with
plaster and painted. An illustration is also given of a covering tile and flanged tile ; and
tegulae mammatae are mentioned, produced by cutting away the flanges except at the corners.
It seems probable that the building extended far beyond the area of these excavations, which
were covered up shortly after they were made [Nort. Daily Guardian, 23 Feb. 1877 ; Arch.
Fourn. xxviii, 66-74, xliii, 32 ; O.S. v, NE.].

Sutron Bonnincron.—A quantity of Roman urns and coins, all well preserved, were found in
1825 on Kirk Hill, the supposed site of a Roman camp [Bailey, Ann. of Notts. iv, 339 ;
Kelly, Dir. 1904, p. 547].

Tuorpe.—In 1789 a stone was found, supposed to be part of a Roman sepulchral monument, with
efigies of a man and woman under straight-sided canopies ; the drawing given is obviously a
bad one, but whatever else it may be it certainly does not look Roman. On the same
spot were found mouldered wood, bones apparently human, stones, and fragments of decayed
bricks once cemented with mortar [Gent. MZag. 1790, i, 18, 116, with plate 2, fig. 2]. A
fine tessellated pavement and coins are said to have been found here, but no account of their
discovery has been preserved [Lewis, Topog. Dict.]. On this site in connexion with the identi-
fication of Ad Pontem, see above, p. 6.

Tuurcarton.—Numerous Roman coins, chiefly of the later Empire, were found at the Priory
towards the end of the 18th century [Dickinson, Antig. in Notts. 1, 97}.

Titnz. See Hayton.

TorwortH.—A Roman urn (sic), ro in. in diameter, found in 1820 at Mantles House ; said to
have been covered with a globular vessel containing a human heart! [Bailey, 4nn. of Notts.
iv, 310].

ono nee in the 18th century a Roman urn was turned up by the plough on the side of a
hill, the contents of which are described by Mr. Lamb of Southwell in a letter now preserved
in the Harleian MSS. [6824, fol. 51 5 Arch. Fourn. xliii, 34] :—

In it were several round balls w™ fell to dust upon y® touch, and a great many round things w™
seem to be Romish [Qu. Roman ?] beads, of blew and speckled colours, and of a sort of glass, a bridle,
curiously enamelled, y® ground brass, no Reins, but only bit chain and bosses, but all so small y* they
seem to have been made for some less creature y" a horse, lower still was found an entire egg cover’d
with a hard mummy [sic] as was also y* top of y° urn, blackish, somew’ pitchy and partly like Spanish
Juice [i.e. liquorice] ; w being broke open there were found 20 silver coins, perhaps scarce to be
equalled in England.

Some of the coins seem from the description which follows to have been of Republican date ;
the others represent all the emperors from Julius Caesar to Domitian (B.c. 49 to A.D. 96),
except Titus. Many bones were also found, suggesting to the writer a burial-place,

Wipmerpoot.—Roman coins were found in this parish (which borders on the Fosse), including a
silver coin of Hadrian (117-38), and a copper coin of Claudius (41-54) [Lewis, Topog.
Dict.).

i ee coins seem to have been found on more than one occasion. When Stukeley
was at Willoughby in 1722 he was told of a pot of Roman money dug up here, which is
probably the ‘pot full of copper coins’ mentioned by Gough [Stukeley, Itin, Cur, 107 3
Deering, Nottinghamia vetus et nova, Introd. 6, App. 286 ; Thoroton, Hist. Notts. (ed. Throsby),
ii, 11; Gough, Camden, ii, 399]. Laird also records finds of coins of the later emperors in

® Morgan in Publications of Monmouth and Caerleon Antig. Soc. (1 866).
35

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

the early part of the 19th century [Beauties of Engl. and IWales, xii (1), 182 ; Lewis, Topog.

Dict.]. See also BRrpGEFoRD, West.

WuLioucHBy.—The site of Vernemetum ; see above, p. 17.

WintHorPE.—According to Dickinson the foundations of an immense bridge, supposed to be
Roman, were seen in the Trent near here during the summers of 1792-3. It is supposed,
however, that he was mistaken in the locality, and that it is really identical with the bridge
discovered near Cromwell (q.v.) nearly a century later [Dickinson, Antig. in Notts. i, 92 ;
Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli, 503; Standard, 3 Nov. 1884. For Dickinson’s mistaken con-
jectures founded on this supposed bridge, see pp. 5, 7]. See also under CROMWELL.

Wiszton.—At Drakeholes in this township, in the parish of Clayworth, at the point where the
branch of Ermine Street between Littleborough and Bawtry (see p. 10) touches the Trent and
Chesterfield Canal, has been supposed to be the site of a small Roman station. Some coins
of Constantine (a.D. 306-37) and human bones have been found in a cutting of the canal
[Beauties of Engl. and Wales, xii (1), 302 ; Lewis, Topog. Dict. ; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 43 ; Brown,
Flist, Notts. 177 ; O.S. 6-in. vi, NE.],

Worksop.—In 1826 several coins of Nero (a.D. 54-68) and Domitian (a.p. 81-96) were found
in the ruins of the old manor house at Gateford, two miles from the town [Lewis,
Topog. Dict. ; Arch. Fourn. xliii, 36]. Small brass coins of the later emperors were found at
Shireoaks (also two miles distant), some years before 1875 [White, Worksop, 98]. See also

OsBERTON.

ECCLESIASTICAL
HISTORY

T is an unfortunate fact, which complicates both the ecclesiastical and
the political geography of England, that the boundaries of the earliest
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms did not coincide to any notable extent with
the lines which determine the county divisions of the present day. In

the 7th century, for instance, it seems probable that the district comprised
within the modern shire of Nottingham included lands which severally formed
part of the kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria and Lindsey. In any case it
was in connexion with the last of these that Christianity first reached the
district in question, for there can be little doubt that the ephemeral conversion
of Lindsey at the hands of Paulinus implied the reception of the faith by
some at least of the men whose dwellings lay on the western bank of the
Trent. More than this we cannot say, nor dare we attempt to fix the
position of the mysterious ‘ civitas’ of Tiovulfinga cestir, near which it was
reported to Bede that Paulinus had baptized a mighty host of converts in
the river. The recrudescence of paganism which followed the battle of
Hatfield in 633 marks a definite severance between the evangelizing work of
Paulinus and the historical Christianity of the north of England.

The more successful labours of the saints of the reconversion are related
by Bede without specific reference to any events which can reasonably be
supposed to have happened within the modern Nottinghamshire. Before the
roth century, there is no definite evidence that a religious house was founded
within the boundary of the shire; and this although the Mercian kings who
followed Penda were zealous in their profession of Christianity. Higher up the
Trent, however, a double community of monks and nuns had been established
at an early date at Repton, from which, towards the close of the 7th century,
Guthlac, the future saint, migrated to found for himself a hermitage at Crow-
land, in the fens of Holland. This primitive monastery is connected with
the history of Nottinghamshire by the fact that at the beginning of the 11th
century the body of Eadburh, the sainted abbess of Repton and the personal
friend of Saint Guthlac, was known to repose in the minster of Southwell.

In the 7th century it seems to have been the rule that each kingdom
should possess its own bishop, the limits of whose diocese contracted or
expanded with the fortunes of the people of whom he had the spiritual
charge. In accordance with this practice it would seem that by the middle of
the 8th century Nottinghamshire as a whole formed part of the Mercian diocese

1 Liber Vitae (Hants Rec. Soc.), lviii, 83.
37

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

of Lichfield. It is at least certain that when the latter see was elevated into
an archbishopric by Offa (787) Nottinghamshire must have lain within its
obedience, and there is no reason to doubt that by this time the county as a
whole had become part of the Mercian kingdom, which coincided in the
narrower sense with the diocese in question. It is reasonable to suppose that
this arrangement persisted until the end of the independent kingdom of
Mercia; but with the coming of the Danes a thick obscurity settles upon
the ecclesiastical organization of the eastern midlands which is not lifted in
the case of Nottinghamshire until we reach the age of Dunstan and Edgar,
nearly a century later; and when this happens we find the county
disconnected from Lichfield and forming to all appearances an integral part of
the great diocese of York.

Before the middle of the roth century there is no evidence whatever
that any Archbishop of York had exercised authority, either as diocesan or
metropolitan, within the limits of Nottinghamshire. It is rarely safe to apply
an argument from silence to any part of the Anglo-Saxon period; but we
possess information in some detail about the early ecclesiastical organization
of Northumbria, and it is very strange that nothing in the recorded history
of Wilfred, John of Beverley, or of their successors the first Archbishops of
York, serves to connect Nottinghamshire with their sphere of government.
On the other hand, as soon as we have passed the year g50 we begin to
receive what seems to be conclusive evidence in this matter. The great
collegiate church of Southwell suddenly appears in being, and as subject to
the patronage of the northern archbishop.’ Earlier than the date of any
unquestioned reference to Southwell, King Edgar in 958 had granted to Oskytel,
Archbishop of York, a large estate in the north of the county which subse-
quently developed into the soke of Sutton and Scrooby. The distribution of
the lands which in 1086 were held by episcopal lords in Nottinghamshire
clinches the argument *—the Bishop of Lichfield held nothing, the Bishop of
Lincoln possessed a wide estate which, however, had been granted to him
subsequently to 1066; the lands of the Archbishop of York fill a folio of
Domesday Book ; and clzarly, as a whole, represent ancient possessions of
fhe see.

In view of these facts, a strong presumption is raised that the addition of
Nottinghamshire to the diocese of York was accomplished somewhere about
the middle of the roth century. The constant anarchy of Northumbria
under its Scandinavian rulers had so wasted the archbishop’s patrimony that
the statesmen of the south recognized the necessity of supplying him with an
endowment which should not be subject to the disorders which distracted his
unruly province. Such an endowment was furnished for a time by the see of
Worcester, which Archbishops Oswald, Ealdwulf, Wulfstan II, and Ealdred
held in commendam together with their metropolitan see ; but there is a strong
probability that the addition of Nottinghamshire to their diocese represents
an earlier attempt to supply the same need. It was a matter of the gravest
importance to prevent the Archbishop of York from making common cause
with the ‘ Danish’ lords of Northumbria; and this could most readily be
accomplished by giving to him a substantial interest in the more purely
English parts of the country. We cannot in this place enter into questions

? Cart. Sax. 1049. ° VCH. Notts. i, 255, 257.
38

“ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

which properly belong to the general ecclesiastical history of the time, but we
may note the existence at this moment of a remarkable group of prelates who
would intimately be concerned in the transference which we are considerinc.
Oskytel, Archbishop of York from 954* to g71 was a kinsman of Ode,
Archbishop of Canterbury from 942 to 958; Dunstan of Glastonbury, the
personal friend of Odo, was a kinsman of Cynesige, Bishop of Lichfield from
949 to 963. It is a significant fact that just at the time when on other
grounds we should suppose the present change to have taken place, the
ecclesiastical affairs of England were in the hands of a knot of men, who were
united both by personal relationship and by a community of ideas respecting
the organization of the Church. In the present state of our knowledge, then,
it would seem most likely that the Archbishops of York added the county of
Nottingham to their see at some point between 954 and 958; and that this
point probably fell in the earlier part of this period and in the reign either
of Eadwig or of his brother Eadred.

The general chronicles of England during the period which immediately
precedes the Norman Conquest contain but scanty information with regard to
England north of the Humber; the later records of the see of York tell us
little about its Nottinghamshire dependency during this time.

The story of Ealdred the last Saxon Archbishop of York (1061-9) who
crowned in Westminster Abbey, within a few short months, both Harold and
the Conqueror, belongs rather to the history of York diocese than to the
archdeaconry of Nottingham, The same too may be said with regard to his
Norman successor, the learned Thomas of Bayeux (1070-1100). In his
episcopate, however, definite records as to the Christian Church in Notting-
hamshire begin with the Domesday Returns of 1086.

That the Domesday Survey nowhere professes to include all or indeed
any of the churches is now so well known, that it scarcely needs even the
briefest reassertion. Their inclusion or exclusion depended to a large extent on
the view of their duties taken by different sets of commissioners. In propor-
tion to its area and the population Nottinghamshire has far more churches
and priests mentioned in the Survey than the great majority of the other
counties of England. ‘The number of churches named (making units of the
fractions) is eighty-four,’ and of the priests sixty-one. In five of these cases,
namely Elston, Linby, Normanton, Wilford and Thoroton a priest occurs
without any reference to a church, but in each of these places it is fair perhaps
to assume that there was a church or chapel.

In seven instances where half a church is entered, and in the two where
a quarter of a church occurs, it means that the manor or hamlet shared with

‘ There issome uncertainty as to the succession of Archbishop Oskytel. His predecessor Wulfstan I had -
been deposed from his see and it is not clear at what time Oskytel took effective possession of the latter. See
Plummer, Two Sax. Céron. ii, Addenda; Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum; and Searle, Angl.-Sax.
Bishops, &c.

* Adbolton, Averham, Barnby in the Willows, Basford, Bole, East Bridgeford, Bunny, Burton Joyce,
Calverton, Carlton in Lindrick, Chilwell (4), Clifton (4), Clifton with Glapton, Collingham (z), Colston _
Basset (4), Colwick, Cotgrave (4), Cotham, Cuckney, Danethorpe, Eakring, Edwinstowe, Elkesley, Elston,
Elton, Epperstone, Fledborough, Flintham, Granby, Greasley, Gringley on the Hill, Grove, Harworth,
Hawton (2), Hockerton, Hoveringham, Kirkby in Ashfield, Kneeton (4), Laneham, Langar ($), Langford, East
Leake, South Leverton (4), Linby, Mansfield with Skegby (2), East Markham, Misterton, Newark with
Balderton and Farndon (10), Newbold, Norwell, Nottingham, Orston, Osberton, Plumtree, Rampton,
Ratcliffe on Soar, Rolleston, Selston, Shelford, Sibthorpe, Stapleford, Staunton, Stoke Bardolph, Sutton on
Trent, Thurgarton, Tollerton, Toton, Trowell, Wansley (4), Warsop, Weston, Winkburn, Wysall.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

one or more of its neighbours in the possession of a church, or that different
tenants held shares of the same church.

Numerous as are the entries of churches of this shire in the early Norman
days, it is quite obvious that the roll is not complete. Even the old mother
church of Southwell is not named, nor can there be much doubt that there
was then a church at Cropwell Bishop. In at least five or six cases remains
of church fabrics (as at Farndon), or of pre-Norman carved stones (as at
Hickling and Shelford) point to other early places of Christian worship not
named in Domesday. Moreover it can be proved in other counties that
chapels of ease or early manorial chapels hardly ever find a place in the Sur-
vey,’ and there is no reason to suppose that Nottinghamshire is in this respect
an exception.’ Taking all these points into consideration, it 1s within the
mark to say that there were at the very least 110 places of Christian worship
in the county in the year 1085, a striking and practical proof of the reality
and vitality of the faith of those early days. The proportion of church
accommodation of those rough times in proportion to the population was
certainly far in excess of that supplied at the beginning of the 2oth century.

The considerable share of Nottinghamshire manors held by the church
at the time of the Survey has already been adequately discussed,’ and need
here be only very briefly recapitulated. In addition to Southwell and its
numerous berewicks in the centre of the county, the Archbishop of York
held a fairly extensive group of manors in the further north, such as Bole,
Beckingham, Scrooby and Everton ; also Cropwell Bishop and Hickling in
the south. The possessions of the Bishop of Lincoln all lay about the centre
of the eastern verge of the county, and were dominated by his widespread
manor of Newark, with its ten churches and eight priests. The Bishop of
Bayeux held six manors, but his holding had no ecclesiastical signification.
The only religious house which held land in this county in chief of
the crown was the Abbey of Peterborough; its holding was restricted
to the two manors of Collingham (with two churches) and North
Muskham.

It is interesting to note that glebe land or other endowments are named
in connexion with some of these churches. In a few of these cases the
endowment was considerable. Thus at Sibthorpe a fourth part of the land of
the manor belonged to the church; and at Barnby in the Willows the church
had half a bovate of land. The one church mentioned in Nottingham in
the king’s demesnes was remarkably well off; it possessed three burgess
houses, 5 bovates of land adjacent to the town and 53 acres of other land.

The extant chronicles and records of the 12th century yield but meagre
ecclesiastical information as to Nottinghamshire. During that period
different archbishops attached four new prebends to their southern cathedral
church of Southwell. Only one religious house was founded in the 11th
century, namely the priory of Blyth; but the following century saw the
establishment—named in chronological order—of the houses of Lenton,
Worksop, Thurgarton, Rufford, Welbeck, Felley, Shelford, Newstead and
Mattersey. It was essentially the century of monastic development.

* See V.C.H. Suff. ii, 10.

: Where William Rufus gave the churches of Mansfield and Orston to the Bishop of Lincoln in 1093
the gift specially mentions the chapels of the various berewicks in each parish. Dugdale, Mon. vi, 1271.

° V.C.H. Notts. i, 217-22.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

The first half of the 13th century witnessed the singular vigour and
systematic discharge of duty so unceasingly displayed by Walter de Gray
during the forty years (1215-55) that he presided over the see of York. Of
this most distinguished of York’s archbishops, it has been well said that he
was ‘cautious and wise as a statesman, pious and munificent as a prelate sta. %
He found the province to which he was translated a barren wilderness, he
left it a fruitful garden.’ His register, the most ancient and perfect of its
kind in the kingdom, yields evidence of the energy of his rule in the arch-
deaconry of Nottingham as well as over the rest of his great diocese. This
register was transcribed and worthily edited by Canon Raine for the Surtees
Society in 1870.

Archbishop Gray was a strenuous advocate for the erection of and
encouragement of chapels in order to secure a better supply of the means of
grace in the large parishes. On this subject he was strengthened in 1239 Dy
a rescript from Pope Gregory IX advising the building of chapels and
oratories in a diocese where many of the parishes were so widespread
(diffuse) that the more distant inhabitants were not able to assemble for
worship without great inconvenience, and not infrequently passed away 1n
illness without the opportunity of receiving the last sacraments or making
their confession.”

The archbishop’s register contains various references to such chapels or
oratories in Nottinghamshire. In 1227 licence was granted to Gilbert de
Cancia, rector of Tuxford, to build and hold service in a chapel im curta sua
at Tuxford on account of the distance of his house from the church and the
badness of the road in winter." Two years later Robert de Lexington was
licensed to build a chapel and to have a chaplain ministering at Laxton.”

In 1231 an ordinance was promulgated as to the chantry chapel of
Barnstone in the parish of Langar, where the men of Barnstone had been in
the habit of hearing mass celebrated three times a week. In order to secure
full service with a chaplain and clerk resident in Barnstone the inhabitants
covenanted to allow Robert the rector of Langar and his successors, in
addition to the two bovates of land pertaining to the chapel, 7 quarters of corn
payable on the vigil of All Saints, and 3 quarters of barley payable on the
vigil of the Purification. The Barnstone parishioners also undertook to
sustain the fabric repairs of the chapel, the lights and all ornaments, except
books, wine, and hosts, which were to be supplied by the rector. All divine
offices were to be performed in the chapel with the exception of funerals ;
but all parishioners were to visit the mother church at Easter, Michaelmas,
and Purification.”

The archbishop granted in 1235 to Alexander de Vilers and his heirs a
chantry in his chapel at Newbold in the parish of Kinoulton, for himself,
his family, guests, and household ; but the mother church was to be attended
at the principal feasts."* About the same time Robert de Lexington obtained a
similar licence for a chapel at his manor-house of Marnham in Marnham
parish. In 1239 the archbishop confirmed to Robert le Vavasour the grant
of a chapel at Hempshill, made to him by the patron and rector of the
church of Greasley.” Again, in 1254, a grant was made to Sir Simon de

° 10 : :

Ta ge Ore tae he ET

a 41 6

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Headon, with the consent of the rector, to have a chapel at his manor-house
of Headon for himself and household.'®

At an earlier date, namely in 1228, the archbishop had confirmed an
ordination respecting the services in the chapel of Edwalton, at the delegation
of the pope, whereby the rector of Flawforth was to do service four days a
week in that chapel, the lord and his men of Edwalton endowing the chapel
with two bovates of land, a meadow, and a toft."”

The appropriation of churches to religious houses was more frequently
accomplished in the 14th century, but there were several such in Nottingham-
shire in the second quarter of the 13th century, as shown by the confirma-
tions in Archbishop Gray’s register, where the following are specified :—
Rolleston, to Southwell Minster, 1225; Hawton, to Thurgarton Priory,
1228; Stapleford, to Newstead Priory, 1229; Hucknall Torkard, to Newstead
Priory, 1234; Barton on Trent, to Worksop Priory, 12343; and Basford, to -
Catesby Priory (Northants), 1246.

Numerous entries also occur in this register of confirmations of pensions
or portions of tithes out of rectories to religious houses, varying in amount
from 2s. to 5 marks. ‘The churches of Costock, Cotgrave, Langar, Tollerton,
and the three Nottingham churches of St. Mary, St. Nicholas, and St. Peter
paid pensions to Lenton Priory; Burton Joyce, Gedling, and Laxton, to
Shelford Priory ; Cotham, to Thurgarton Priory; Sutton on Trent, to Work-
sop Priory ; Elton and Weston, to Blyth Priory ; and Marnham and Sib-
thorpe, to the order of the Templars.

Traces of the old customs with regard to clerical marriages and the
ownership and descent of ecclesiastical property lingered on until Archbishop
Gray’s time. In 1221 Pope Honorius III wrote to the archbishop directing
him to remove married clergy from their benefices, and also all who had suc-
ceeded their fathers in their preferments."*’ Unfortunately Gray’s register
from 1221 to 1225 is missing, so it is impossible to know to what extent
the diocesan carried out these orders in their freshness. Between 1225 and
1250, however, about ten reformations in such cases were ordered or made
by the archbishop, but none of these instances occurred in Nottinghamshire.

In another way the archbishop also proved himself a reformer, namely,
in the endeavour to get rid of portions or medieties in the same benefice. A
Nottinghamshire example occurs in the case of Grove, where, when the
rectory was vacant in 1226, the archbishop instituted G. de Ordeshal, vicar of
the same, to the rectory, thus consolidating the rectory and vicarage. The
instances where there was both a rector and a vicar, each supposed to be
resident, were not at that time uncommon. Portions and medieties of
rectories were also to be met with in all dioceses, but with unusual frequency
in the archdiocese of York. It is supposed by some that these subdivisions,
sometimes of a comparatively small rectory, originated with divisions of
property amongs: heiressess or different proprietors.* Nottinghamshire
rectories which were thus split up in the 13th century included those of
Eakring, Gedling, Treswell, Trowell, and West Retford.

The use that was frequently made by royalty in the 13th century of
monastic superiors in the suppression of secular illegalities is a striking

‘© Archbp. Gray Reg. (Surtees Soc.), lvi, 271-2. " Ibid. 18. * Add. MS. 15352, fol. 124.
* Raine, Introd. to Gray’s Reg. pp. xxx-xxxi.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

witness to the general estimation and respect with which they were for the
most part regarded. There was also in all probability another somewhat
mean reason for their employment when a civil affray was expected ; for
any kind of assault on an ecclesiastic was subject to much severer penalties
than the like treatment of a sheriff or his officers. When the advisers of
Henry III decided to prohibit the holding of a tournament at Blyth, in
1234 and again in 1235, the Priors of Lenton, Blyth, and Shelford, together
with the cellarer of Lenton, were ordered to attend personally at Blyth to
stop the tournament and to execute the king’s mandate.” On another
occasion the Abbot of Roche was associated with the Priors of Lenton and
Blyth in a like prohibition.

The register of Archbishop Walter Giffard (1266-79) is another of
those valuable ecclesiastical documents printed by the Surtees Society which
throw so much light upon church administration in the 13th century.”
Giffard made zealous endeavours to cope with the many abuses of the day.
The unsettled condition of the country towards the close of the reign of
Henry III gave rise to a variety of disputes as to advowsons. Sometimes
there were as many as three applicants for the same benefice under different
patrons, and in one case there were actually five different presentations to
a single vacant rectory. The archbishop commissioned in such cases a
special tribunal, composed of members of the rural deanery in which the
vacancy occurred, to make inquiry concerning the title of the patron and at
the same time as to the fitness of the presentee. Of this highly interesting
class of document, not to be found (so far as we are aware) in other episcopal
registers, there are unfortunately only a few examples. Many of the
presentees were in minor orders. In the case of a vacancy at West Retford,
one of the presentees was an acolyte, whilst the other had only received the
first tonsure. The inquisition in this case was held on 3 October 1267 in
full chapter of the deanery of Retford, in the church of St. Michael, before
the Archdeacon of Nottingham. The right to present was claimed by Sir
Henry de Almaine, nephew of the king. Robert de Sunfield, acolyte, was
declared to be of legitimate birth, of good manners, and a fit person, so far as
human frailty could determine. On the following 9 January, the same
chapter was convoked in the same place, when it was reported that the
believed the true presentation rested with Prince Edward (afterwards Edward I),
as the prince had recently presented to the half church of Grove, which was
of the same fee. The report was witnessed by the vicar of Blyth and by
the incumbents of eight other parishes in the deanery, as well as by the
respective parochial chaplains, whereupon Prince Edward a week later wrote
to the archbishop explaining that a certain lady had come to him and made
him believe that the patronage belonged to her, but that his relative
Sir Henry de Almaine had now proved to him that he (the prince) had
granted the advowson to Sir Henry ; therefore the archbishop was asked to do
Justice to his presentee.”

In cases of minor orders it was Giffard’s custom to demand the presence
of the presentee at the next ordination, and in the meantime commit the

* Pat. 18 Hen. III, m. 10; 19 Hen. III, m. 3; 20 Hen. II], m. 14; 26 Hen. III, pt. i, m. 13.

*' Issued in 1904 ; edited, with introduction, by Mr. William B
* York Epis. Reg, Giffard, fol. 35 d., 36, a6. eae

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

custody of the benefice to some suitable person of his own nomination.
Treswell affords a Nottinghamshire instance of this. Of that church there
were two rectories, andon 20 September 1267 John Musters, clerk, was pre-
sented to a moiety by his brother Robert. The archbishop ordered the arch-
deacon to hold an inquisition, and on 3 October the full chapter of Retford
deanery pronounced that the presentee was in every way qualified by birth,
manners, and conduct, but was defective in age. On 24 October, John Mus-
ters was admitted, but the archbishop, on account of his age, knowledge, and
orders, committed the custody of the moiety of Treswell to Edward de Welles,
instructing the Dean of Retford to induct him.* Other instances about this
date of admission to benefices of those in minor orders are those of an acolyte
to Arnold and of a sub-deacon to Bonnington. In the case of a presentation
to St. Nicholas, Nottingham, by the prior and convent of Lenton, the report
of the inquisition was that Nicholas de Wermundesworth, an acolyte, was of
legitimate birth, of good life and conversation, and of good manners, so far as
his age permitted, and of that they judged from his personal appearance.™

Cardinal Otto, when legate in England in 1237, had ordered that all
rectors or vicars were to proceed to the priesthood within a year of their
institution. Giffard did his best to enforce this rule, and in one case (Carnaby
in the East Riding) deprived an incumbent who failed to comply.*

Giffard also endeavoured to stop the evil of pluralities. In two of his
mandates to commissioners appointed to make inquiries throughout the
diocese, the question of plurality occupied the first place; he directed that
offenders were to be cited before him to produce their dispensations to hold
more than one benefice. But the archbishop was impeded in this direction
by the action of the court of Rome. Thus in the case of one John Clarell, a
most notorious pluralist, holding the Nottinghamshire churches of Bridgeford,
Elton, and Babworth and three others elsewhere, as well as the Southwell
prebend of Norwell, the archbishop had no choice but to admit him in 1272 to
the additional church of Hooton Roberts, as he held a papal dispensation.”

Worse even than this last case were the foreign pluralists, quartered on the
diocese by direct papal intervention, who did not serve a single one of their
English cures. The charge of 50 marks a year levied on the holder of a
Southwell prebend, in favour of the pope’s nephew, is mentioned in the
subsequent account of that collegiate church.

Giffard, through his strenuous attempts to administer righteously, met
with not a little opposition from his own officials. One of the most
troublesome of these was Thomas de Wyten, Archdeacon of Nottingham.
On one occasion, namely on 11 February 1267-8, the archbishop took the
grave step of publicly admonishing his archdeacon to be obedient. His
monition to that effect was delivered in the presence of the archdeacons of
Ane and the East Riding, of the sub-dean of York, and of many
others.*

Giffard’s register includes the lists of several ordinations, with records
of the titles for deacons, sub-deacons, and priests. At the ordination held in
September 1268 the sub-deacons of Nottingham archdeaconry included

*8 York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 34 d., 35.
mee De qua in parte corporis aspectum nobis consta’ ; ibid. fol. 3. * Thid. fol. 98.
* Ibid. fol. 17 5 Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 363. 7 York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 7.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Adam de Sneinton, Henry Burdon, Nicholas de Schafteworth, and Hugh de
Bardeshale, on the title of their own patrimony. ;

The large September ordinations of 1273 and 1274 were held in the
church of Blyth. In the first of these cases, various sub-deacons from
different parts of the diocese were ordained on the strength of patrimony
titles and two ad titulum probitatis; six were presented by the chapter of
Southwell. In 1274 the chapter of Southwell presented two deacons :
Beauvale Priory one, Newstead Priory four, the Nottingham Carmelites
one, Worksop Priory two, and Welbeck Abbey two. For the priesthood,
Southwell presented four, Thurgarton Priory three, Wallingwells one ; and
there were various priests ordained to titles of patrimony or probity as well
as those who were secular clergy.*

Towards the end of Giffard’s register there are some highly interesting
references to the crusading movement at the time of its close. The
eighth and last genuine crusade was that undertaken in 1270-1, when
Prince Edward (afterwards Edward I) was at Acre and Nazareth. This
register contains a copy of the letter of the king, dated 12 May 1270,
addressed to the bishops stating that it was the intention of himself and his
sons to go to the Holy Land on 25 June.” The bishops at a council held
on the subject had granted the king a twentieth. There was, however, an
earnest attempt made in 1271 at the Council of Lyons to fan the flickering
flames of crusading fire into renewed life. Gregory V, Prince Edward’s
particular friend, was its warm advocate; but on his death in 1276 the
whole scheme collapsed. On 14 July 1275 Archbishop Giffard sent a letter
to the archdeacons of his diocese, ordering them to give every assistance to
the Friars Minor who were commissioned to preach for the crusade.”

The ingenious method adopted throughout the whole of this diocese to
raise crusading funds in the spring of 1275 is remarkably illustrated in the
various archdeaconries. Henry de Tiversold, Dean of Nottingham, is entered
as crucesignatus, inasmuch as he had received all sacred orders from foreign ®
bishops, without the licence of his diocesan. For this technical offence he was
absolved on payment of 55., which evidently went into the crusading chest.
William de Mysen, Dean of Retford, was also crucesignatus ; and for absolution
for a like offence he had to pay 2o0s., or to go personally to the Holy Land,
according to which course he preferred. It is not a little remarkable to find
that two other of the rural deans of Nottinghamshire (out of a total of five)
had also committed the like offence, and each of them was sealed with the
cross, paying the sum of 5s.

Having begun this line of action with the rural deans of Nottinghamshire
the archbishop next caused like steps to be taken with the various clergy and
laity who had committed technical or other offences, granting them absolution
on becoming Crusaders to the extent at least of subscribing to the war chest.
In the deanery of Retford, two priests and five laymen were thus treated,
each of them paying 5s. Richard de Watton paid 6s. 8d. ; whilst Gilbert de
Mora of Worksop undertook to give the third part of all his goods as a
subsidy to the Holy Land, or else to go there in person. In the deanery of
Nottingham there were fifteen cases in which absolution was secured by

* York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 92, 93. ® Tbid. fol. 74. % Tbid. fol. 116.
* That is, any bishops other than the Archbishop of York.
45

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

payments varying from 2s. to 20s. In the deanery of Bingham four priests
each paid 2s., and four laymen §s. each.

John de Neinurche a layman of the parish of Bingham, was crucesignatus,
and fined 6s. 8d. for laying violent hands on a certain priest. In the deanery
of Newark there were three fines of 25., and one of 20s. ; the last of these was
imposed on a knight. There was an exceptional case at Southwell: Nicholas
de Cnoville, one “of the canons, promised the archbishop out of his great
devotion, in order to merit the wearing of the sign of the cross, to pay {20
as the expenses of a suitable man to join the crusades, or to go to the Holy
Land with the general concourse of Crusaders in person. This undertaking
was committed to writing and substantiated by the diocesan seal.

The well-arranged register of William Wickwane, archbishop from
1279 to 1286, affords many particulars as to the methodical execution of
episcopal functions in the archdeaconry of Nottingham.

Wickwane’s official mandate was issued to the archdeacon in November
1279, instructing him to seek out and receive any Nottinghamshire clerks w ho
had been imprisoned by the justices, and to transfer them to canonical custody.’
An interesting mandate was served on the archdeacon in December 1280,
wherein the archbishop ordered him to demand the release of two of the
converst or lay brothers of the monastery of Rufford who were in prison
at Nottingham, inasmuch as they wore the habit and insignia of religion, and
therefore were entitled to the immunity and privileges of clerks. The arch-
deacon was ordered to retain them in canonical custody until the archbishop
made known his further pleasure concerning them.”

The episcopal mandate in March 1280-1 was addressed to the Dean of
Nottingham and the rector of St. Peter’s, instructing them to excommunicate
in all the churches of Nottingham on Sundays and festivals those who had
committed a violent assault on one Geoffrey Scathelockes, who bore the
distinct signs of being a clerk, and to do their best to ascertain the names of the
offenders.®*

A curious case with regard to the ecclesiastical penalties for lay incontin-
ence was decided by the archbishop in 1279. Thomas de Gateford, a smith,
was convicted of adultery before the official of the archbishop at Southwell, |
and was sentenced to a heavy fine and to public penance. Thereupon Thomas
protested that his poverty was such, as he could testify by his own oath and
by those of his neighbours, that it was impossible to pay any considerable fine,
but that he was prepared to accept the severest form of corporal punishment.
He also submitted that it was not just to impose the two-fold penalty, and
appealed to the archbishop. Wickwane decided in the man’s favour, and
ordered the Archdeacon of Nottingham, his official, and the Dean of Retford
on no account to exact money from Thomas ; for ecclesiastical discipline was
never intended for the extortion of fees, but for the correction of life; but they*
were to see that public penance was duly carried out in the market-place and
the churches.*

The references to the holding of plurality of benefices are not numerous in
Wickwane’s registers so far as Nottinghamshire is concerned. In June 1280
two commissaries of the archbishop sanctioned the holding of the churches

* York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 122 d., 135 d., 140d. ® Ibid. Wickwane, fol. 120.
4 Ibid. fol. 178 d. *° Ibid. fol. 179. *© Ibid. fol. 120.
46

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

of Soulbury (Buckinghamshire) and a mediety of Treswell in this county by
Edmund de Everley, who appeared before them in the church of Retford.”

The archbishop seems to have been powerless to check the grave and
partially-sanctioned abuse whereby comparative youngsters were admitted to
rectories and instantly became non-residents on the plea of attending the
schools for study. The following licences of absence for study were granted
to Nottinghamshire rectors within three years (1280-2) :—Arnold, Averham,
Clayworth, Cotgrave, Normanton on Soar, and Wilford for three years ;
Broughton, Gedling, Grove, and Thorpe for two years ; and Bingham, Clifton,
Elton, Gotham, Kilvington, Langar, Leake, Strelley, Tollerton, and Weston
for one year. In some cases the licence suffered the holders to attend the
schools of Paris or elsewhere across the seas. Occasionally the archbishop
seems to have suspected the dona fides of the application ; thus in the case of
the rector of Broughton, he was reminded that he was only to be absent from
his parish for genuine study (Aonesto studio). In the case of Autelynus Day,
rector of Sibthorpe, licence was granted him on 19g November 1279 to
proceed to Paris for his studies up to the feast of St. John Baptist (24 June),
provided that he then returned and proceeded to priest’s orders at the next
ordination. Ralph Samson, rector of Epperstone, was allowed to leave his
parish for study on 26 December 1280 up to the ensuing Michaelmas ; but
in March 1282 he obtained renewed leave of absence for two years. Edmund
de Everley, rector of a mediety of Treswell, obtained diocesan sanction in
January 1281 to absent himself for three years on account of a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land.*

The most important appropriation of a Nottinghamshire church during
the episcopacy of Wickwane was that of Mattersey to the Gilbertine priory
of that place. The vicarage was ordained in October 1280, sanction being
given to the appropriation of the rectory to the prior and canons of Mattersey
owing to the severe losses they had sustained through a recent fire. The
Priory was to have the tithes of grain from the lands in the parish of Mat-
tersey then actually under cultivation, except of certain specified lands, the
tithes of which, together with the tithes of hay and the various small tithes of the
whole parish, the rectory manse, and all oblations and mortuaries, were to belon g
to the perpetual vicar. No tithes were to be paid on the priory fisheries, tan-
nery, or mills, nor any small tithes on anything within the monastery precincts.
The tithes of the gardens and orchard of the grange of ‘ Bachowe,’ and of
the young livestock of the same grange, were also saved to the religious. The
collation to the vicarage was reserved to the archbishop. The priory was to
pay synodals, and 20s. in silver yearly by way of pension to the vicar, and As.
a year towards the repair of the books and ornaments of the church, together
with 4d. a year for waxshot of Ralph son of Hugh and his heirs. The priory
was also to keep the chancel in repair, or torebuild it if the occasion demanded.
The archbishop reserved to himself and his successors the right to add, change,
lessen, correct, declare, or interpret this ordination as often as it might seem
expedient. The canons were to have the right, as aforetime, of entering the
church, and a like right was reserved to the archdeacon and his official.*

At Michaelmas 1281, after an inquisition as to its value had been held
by twelve of the rectors and vicars of Retford deanery, the officials of the

*” York Epis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 121 d. " Ibid. passim. * Ibid. fol. 15.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

church of York assigned to the vicarage of Blyth, as an augmentation, all the
tithes both of corn and hay of the chapelries of Bawtry and Austerfield.
Whereupon the prior of Blyth and William de Elton, the vicar of the same,
appeared in York Minster before the official, who gave the prior the choice
whether the whole tithes of the two chapelries should be allotted to the
vicarage or whether he would pay £60 to the vicar and his successors, in
good portions. The prior selected the latter alternative.”

In January 1279-80 Sir Henry de Sibthorpe, in consequence of his zeal
and devotion to the Catholic faith, obtained leave to have an oratory within
the court of his manor of Sibthorpe for the use of himself and his household,
served by a competent chaplain at a suitable stipend, the due rights of the
parish church being reserved. A particular proviso was also entered to the
effect that the licence should be totally void if ever the oratory was lacking
in vestments, ornaments, or chalice.“

An entry of particular moment to liturgiologists occurs in Wickwane’s
register, under date 7 May 1282. A mandate was then addressed to the
Dean of Retford by the archbishop, to command each of the rectors and
vicars throughout the archdeaconry of Nottingham to provide themselves,
within a year, with books of the Use of York, denouncing any who might
prove contumacious.”

Under the heading Correcciones Claustrales in Archidiaconatu Notinghamie,
the injunctions consequent on Archbishop Wickwane’s visitation of the
religious houses of Newstead, Worksop, Thurgarton, and Blyth, in 1280, are
set forth at length.*

Archbishop Wickwane’s successor, John Romayne, or Romanus, ruled
the diocese for some ten years. ‘Two cases occur in his register of the awk-
ward and exceptional arrangement by which there was a rector and a vicar
both resident on the same benefice. In 1287 the archbishop drew up an
ordinance to regulate the enrolments and duties of Master William de Barrok
the rector and Thomas the vicar of Flintham, to put an end to long-standing
contention between them. The rector was to reside and to exercise daily
hospitality ; he was to have a bovate of the demesne land then held by the
vicar, the tithe of 2 bovates of land in the field of Kneeton, and the mor-
tuaries pertaining to the church both in cattle and chattels. The vicar was
to retain everything else assigned to him by the original ordinance of the
vicarage. ‘This agreement was, however, only to hold good so long as the
present rector and his successors were personally resident.

In 1291 the archbishop had occasion to administer a severe rebuke to
the rector of Marnham because of his conduct towards the vicar of the
same parish.

The chapter of Lincoln, on 24 June 1288, requested the archbishop to
admit their newly-elected dean, Philip de Willoughby, into the benefices in
York diocese belonging to the deanery. Dean Philip appointed Robert de
Wadingham, chaplain, to act as his proctor, and to promise canonical obedience
on his behalf to the archbishop for these benefices. On 12 July Henry,

* York Epis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 180. “ Ibid. fol. 14, 120d.
, id te fol. 179. As to the Use of York and its important divergencies, see Diocesan Hist. of York,
94-307:

“ Ibid. fol. 136-7. Reference is made to these in the subsequent accounts of the religious houses.
“ York Epis. Reg. Romayne, fol. 72 d. “ Tbid. fol. 78.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Archdeacon of Richmond, the archbishop’s vicar-general, issued his mandate
to the vicar of Mansfield, Dean of Nottingham, to induct the new Dean of
Lincoln with possession of the church of Mansfield. A similar mandate was
also issued as to the induction of the dean into possession of the church of
South Leverton.

Archbishop Romayne, in a letter dated 4 September 1291, to the warden
of the Friars Minor at York, expressed his intention of preaching in York
Minster on behalf of the crusade on the day of the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross, and asked him to send three friars to preach for the same object on
the same day at Howden, Selby, and Pocklington, promising a hundred
days’ indulgence to those who joined or supported the expedition. A like
commission was sent to all the houses of Dominican and Franciscan friars
throughout the diocese to send out three, or at the least two, of their
members to preach the crusade on that day. The Franciscans of Nottingham
were to supply preachers for Nottingham, Newark, and Bingham.”

This renewed but abortive crusade preaching was caused by Pope
Nicholas 1V giving the tenths of the papal tax on benefices to Edward I for
six years, towards a fresh expedition to the Holy Land.

The vicarage of Hucknall Torkard was sequestrated for a singular reason
in 1292. Adam de Hoknale the vicar had taken a special oath of residence
at his vicarage, but in spite of this he had departed covertly to the Holy
Land, alleging a vow. The archbishop was willing to overlook the perjury,
but instructed his diocesan official to sequestrate the profits of the vicarage
from the time of his departure until his return from the Holy Land, providing
meanwhile a priest to serve the parish.“

Philip of Willoughby, Dean of Lincoln, was summoned in 1292 by the
official of York diocese to pay canonical obedience to the archbishop for the
churches in York diocese annexed to his deanery, as had been done by his
predecessors. From the tenor of Archbishop Romayne’s mandate to his
official, dated 28 November, it is evident that the dean had treated previous
intimations with disdain or contempt, for the terms of the mandate are most
peremptory ; the dean was to be at once personally cited to appear to yield
obedience to the archbishop, if the official could find him, and if not the
official was to cause the matter to be proclaimed distinctly and openly in
each church of the diocese held by the dean, at high mass, on some solemn
day where most people were assembled, summoning the dean to appear per-
sonally or by proxy before the archbishop in his manor of Hexham on the
next court day after the Circumcision.” The dean disregarded this solemn
summons, and, on 14 February 1292~3, the archbishop again issued a citation
entrusting the delivery of it on this occasion to the official of the Archdescon
of Nottingham.”

Careful provision was compassionally made for Nicholas the vicar of
Fast Markham, on his resignation in 1293, when bowed down with old age.
The archbishop arranged that he was to have for life the greater tithes of the
vill of Tuxford which belong to East Markham vicarage. Nicholas was to
bear his share of any extraordinary burdens. A new vicar was inducted into
the vicarage of East Markham, but the archdeacon’s official, on the same day

* York Epis. Reg. Romayne, fol. 73. Lett Nor
“ York Epis. Reg. Romayne, fol. 79. 2 ha vee errr

2 49 7

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

that he received a mandate to make that induction, received another mandate
to induct Nicholas the late vicar of East Markham into the portion of tithes
belonging to that vicarage at Tuxford."

Robert, rector of one portion of Cotgrave, was accused of simony in
1293. He canonically purged himself before William de Blida, sub-dean of
York, and William de Beverly, the archbishop’s commissioners, and was duly
restored to good fame.”

In 1295 William de Sutton-in-Ashfield, a secular priest, was in gaol
under a charge of theft; but he purged himself by canonical purgation *
before the archbishop’s official ; he was released, and the archbishop issued
his mandate to the Archdeacon of Nottingham to cause his good fame to be
proclaimed throughout the whole archdeaconry and especially in those places
where he was known and where he had been defamed.

Archbishop Romayne executed a formal ordination of the chapel of
Harby on 24 October 1294, confirming an ordination of the Dean and Chapter
of Lincoln and William de Langwath canon of Lincoln and prebendary of
Clifton, for the support of a chaplain to celebrate for the soul of Queen
Eleanor, who ‘ at Harby, as God willed, breathed her last.’

Notices of visitations by Archbishop Romayne of the Nottinghamshire
religious houses which were under his control were sent out on 27 December
1286. He, or in the case of Felley his clerks, were to be expected at Worksop
on 10 January, at Newstead on the 12th of the same month, at Felley on the
14th, and at Thurgarton on the 17th. Parochial visitations were to be held
at the same period. The clergy, churchwardens, and four of those whom
we should now term lay representatives of each parish of the deanery of
Nottingham, were summoned to the parish church of Sneinton on 16 January,
and those of the deanery of Retford to the parish church of St. Michael in
that town on g January.

In January 1290-1 notices were given of the archbishop’s intention to
hold visitations (ad clerum et populum) of the parishes in the deanery ot
Retford, in the church of St. Michael, on 15 February ; of the deanery of
Newark, in the parish church of Marnham, on 17 February ; and of the
deanery of Nottingham, in the church of St. Mary, on 20 February.”

On 5 July 1294 notice was given of the following parochial visitations °
to be held on behalf of the archbishop in the archdeaconry of Nottingham :—
the deanery of Bingham on 23 July, in the parish church of Bingham ; the
deanery of Nottingham on 24 July, in the parish church of Gedling ; the
deanery of Newark on 27 July, in the parish church of Laxton ; and the deanery

5! York Epis. Reg. Romayne, fol. 82. * Ibid.

® There is so much misconception as to mediaeval purgation or compurgation that it may be well to
remark that in certain of the less grave offences an accused person was allowed to clear himself by taking an
oath that he was not guilty and by producing a certain number of witnesses who swore that they believed in
his innocency ; evidence of this corresponded to modern witnesses to general character. Canonical purgation
was safeguarded in two ways :—(1) It could not be exercised until due notice had been given, and if after
such notice strong corroborative evidence against the accused was forthcoming, the purgation was not proceeded
with but sentence pronounced upon the offender. (2) Purgation could only take place in the rural deanery
where the alleged offence had occurred, so that when the case was a notorious one evidence might be readily
forthcoming. In the 13th century the ceremony of ecclesiastical purgation was an exceedingly solemn one,
preceded by the solitary vigil of the accused in the church on the previous night. See Serjeantson, Hist. of
St. Peter's, Northamet:n, 17-19. . ;

* York Epis. Reg. Romayne, fol. 85. *§ Ibid. ;

* Ibid. fol. 70 d. i ; Tal fal i

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

of Retford on 29 July, in the church of the blessed Michael at the Bridge of
Retford. On this occasion Nottinghamshire was visited by the archbishop’s
official, and by Master W. de Blida, sub-dean of York, because the archbishop
was at that time (as is set forth) in parts remote from his diocese, engaged
in arduous work on behalf of the Church of England.

These two visitors were further commissioned by the archbishop on
1 September following for the correcting, reforming, and repairing all the
offences that had been discovered (comperta) during their visitation of the
archdeaconry of Nottingham, according to their nature and quality, as set
forth on the rolls attached to the commission.”

Serious accusations were preferred against Richard vicar of Bingham in
1283. He was charged with keeping a public-house, revealing the secrets
of confessions, drunkenness, quarrelling, neglecting service, illiteracy, and
grave incontinency. For these enormities the vicar made absolute and
humble submission to his diocesan, pleading for mercy and expressing com-
plete penitence. The archbishop bound him under a bond of £10 to abstain
from all these acts ; stating that any return to incontinence or breaking the
seal of confession would be followed by deprivation.”

Bingham was at this time doubly unfortunate in its parish clergy, for
four years later (1287) Robert the rector of Bingham was bound under a
penalty of £50 to be of good behaviour, and not to repeat divers evil actions.
The rector, however, returned to his evil life, for in 1294 we find the arch-
bishop writing to the Archdeacon of Oxford about the rector of Bingham,
who was accused of incontinence with a woman living in St. Giles Street,
Oxford ; he begged the archdeacon to see that the woman, whom he named,
was duly corrected, and that he would also proceed against the rector if he
could find him, for he had fled to escape canonical punishment and there
were many other charges against him.®

The entries near the beginning of Archbishop Romayne’s register
relative to leave of absence so freely granted to youthful rectors for the
purpose (as alleged) of study take, in several instances, rather unusual forms.

In 1286 William de Bosco rector of Attenborough had leave to attend
the schools (stare in scolis) for three years, and in the meantime to let his
church. In the same year Henry rector of Kirkby-in-Ashfield handed over
his church to be farmed by Walter Oliver, clerk, from 15 April, for the term
of three years, having permission to attend the schools for that period.
William de Weston rector of Car Colston had leave to study for two years,
from Michaelmas 1286, in a place in England where he might solemnly

_ pursue his studies in theology or in canon law, provided that his church and
the cure of souls were meanwhile in the charge of a suitable proxy, who
would be held responsible to the ordinary.”

Previous letters of Archbishops Giffard and Wickwane, dated respec-
tively 1272 and 1280, permitting Edmund de Everley to hold a mediety of
Treswell together with one Oxfordshire benefice were inspected and confirmed
in May 1286. At the same time Archbishop Romayne granted Edmund
three years’ leave of absence to study in this country or across the sea,

* York Epis. Reg. Romayne, fol. 83d. Two continental councils were held this year, the one at
Saumur, the other at Tarragona.

® Ibid, ® Ibid. fol. 70 d. *! Tbid. fol. 72 d. ® Ibid. fol. 69.
51

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

wherever the solemn study of theology or canon law prevailed. This was
a remarkable case, for although Edmund had been a rector in two dioceses
for fourteen years, he was still only in sub-deacon’s orders. During his
absence he was to let his Nottinghamshire church and to make the usual
provision.”

In December 1286 Henry de Gloverna, rector of Sutton-on-Trent, was
licensed to be absent for study for a year from the next Whitsuntide.™ The
ease with which such leave of absence was obtained, for ‘study’ that must
often have been merely nominal, is again illustrated in this case. Rector Henry
obtained like leave of absence on like grounds from the same archbishop

on two subsequent occasions, namely for two years in 1289, and for another

two years in 1295.”

There are a few instances of appropriation of churches in Archbishop
Romayne’s register. In 1287 a vicarage was instituted in the church of
Cotham, the rectory of which had been annexed to the prebend of Master
R. de la Ford of Southwell Minster. The vicar was to receive all small
tithes, save those of wool and lambs, which went to the prebendary, together
with the rectory buildings and the tithes of grain and hay throughout the
parish. The prebendary had to pay yearly to the vicar, at Martinmas and
Whitsuntide, a mark in equal portions. The vicar was to have the house
adjoining the churchyard with its garden, where the parish priests of that
church had been accustomed to live, and also all mortuaries.™

The church of Colston Basset was appropriated to Laund Priory in
1290, the formal sanction of the archbishop being secured on 28 November.”

In the same year another church, that of Eaton, was appropriated to a
prebend of Southwell. The vicar was to have allsmall tithes, including those
of lambs and wool, with mortuaries and the turbary rights of the church, and
the prebendary was also to pay him 4 marks a year. The prebendary was to
have the manse and its buildings, the great tithes, all the land and meadow
pertaining to the church, and the tithes of hay. The vicar was to serve the
church personally, and with sufficient suitable ministers of the usual and
customary number, and to bear all ordinary burdens. Extraordinary burdens,
as often as they occurred, were to be shared by prebendary and vicar. The
prebendary was to provide ornaments and books.”

In February 1294-5 the archbishop collated to the vicarage of Bingham
through lapse of time. An inquisition was held with regard to the customary
income of the vicar ; he was declared to be entitled to the oblations of three
halfpence with holy bread on Sundays, the wax due of the parishioners, bread
and other oblations, and to tithes except those of corn, wool, lambs, and hay.
He was also to have mortuaries, bequests, tithes of inclosed gardens whenever
sowed with seed, tithes of mills, and 75. 4d. from the rector in addition to
20 marks. Also the manse in which the vicar had been accustomed to live.”

The Dean of Nottingham in 1289 was instructed by the archbishop to
warn Sir John de Heriz, kt., not to interfere with the chantry of three
priests of old foundation in the chapel of Broadbusk (Gonalston), as threatened,
informing him that he would be solemnly excommunicated for interfering with
the liberties of the Church of England unless he retracted within eight days.

* York Epis. Reg. Romayne, fol. 69 d. * Ibid. fol, 70d. § Ibid. fol. 75, 84d.
% Thid. fol. 72, * Thid. fol. 76-7, * Ibid. fol. 75. ® Ibid. fol. 84 d.
52

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

This threat apparently had the desired effect, for the next entry in the
register is the grant by Sir John de Heriz to Geoffrey de Hoveringham,
chaplain, of the custody of his house of Broadbusk, with lands, rents, posses-
sions and all things pertaining to it, as it was e/emosina mea et antecessorum
meorum, so that he may hold the cure of it for making and ordaining as should
seem best ; but providing that he should never sell any lands or rents, nor
make or receive any brother without the assent of Sir John or his heirs.
The chapel was to be held by Geoffrey for life, unless it should happen that
he should absent himself or be convicted of any grave delinquency against the
house.”

An exceptional mandate was issued tothe archdeacon’s official in 1286,
whereby he was instructed to warn William de Beltoft, a parishioner of the
church of Clayworth, to treat his wife Cecilia with proper respect (maritali
affectu), and to make provision for her sustenance.”

In February 1287-8 a mandate was issued to the Dean of Bingham to
publish the excommunications of the persons who had violently assaulted Adam
de Bonnington, priest, at high mass in all churches of his deanery on Sunday
and festivals; when their names were discovered, the offenders were to be
summoned to appear before the archbishop (wherever he might be) on his
next court day after the festival of Sts. Peter and Paul.” Sentence of
excommunication was pronounced in January 1288-9 in the church of
Flintham and in adjacent churches against those who had unjustly accused
Sir John de Hose, kt., of various crimes which he had not committed ; and
at the same time a general sentence of excommunication was uttered against
slanderers, against those who wilfully hurt their neighbours by fraud or malice
or by theft, contrary to the primitive principles of the Decalogue.* Absolu-
tion and restitution to fame was granted by the archbishop in 1289 to John
de Calveton, priest, after he had solemnly purged himself of the charge pre-
ferred against him, for having so severely thrashed a boy named William de
Wympton that his back, it was said, was a continuous mass of bruises.”

The last archbishop of the 13th century, Henry de Newark (1296-9),
was a native of Nottingham and kinsman of William de Newark, Canon of
Southwell and Archdeacon of Huntingdon, who died in 1286. Henry de
Newark was a favourite of Archbishop Wickwane, who made him Arch-
deacon of Richmond, whilst Archbishop Romayne gave him the stall of
Muskham in Southwell Minster. In 1290 he was promoted to the deanery
of York.”

Before proceeding to the 14th century, it may be well to give a brief
analysis of the Taxation Roll of Pope Nicholas taken in 1292 for the province
of York.

From the manner in which the returns are entered, this Taxation Roll
is not to be quite relied upon for including all the appropriated churches and
vicarages that had been formally ordained up to that date ; but the following
is a list of those churches (numbering forty-eight) therein entered as then
appropriated to religious houses within the county :—Lenton Prory: the
churches of St. Mary, St. Nicholas, and St. Peter in Nottingham, Lenton,
Beeston, and Radford; Welbeck Abbey: Whatton, Ratcliffe on Soar,

™ York Epis. Reg. Romayne, fol. 74. " Ibid. fol. 70. Ibid.
8 Thid. fol. 71 d. ™ Tbid. fol. 72. 7 Raine, Hist. of York and its Archbishops, 349-51.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Ruddington, and Cuckney; Worksop Priory: Worksop, Walkeringham, Osberton,
Littleborough, Gringley, West Burton, Normanton, Marnham, and Wysall ;
Thurgarton Priory: Thurgarton, Hoveringham, Sutton in Ashfield, Granby,
Owthorpe, and Tythby ; Newstead Priory: Stapleford, Hucknall Torkard,
Papplewick, and Lowdham; Fe/ley Priory : Annesley 5 Broadholme Priory:
Thorney ; Beauvale Priory: Kimberley ; Shelford Priory: Saxondale and
Shelford ; B/yth Priory: Blyth and Wheatley ; Mattersey Priory: Mattersey
and Elkesley ; and Wa/lingwells Priory: Carlton in Lindrick.

Rectories appropriated to foundations outside the county (sixteen in all)
were Mansfield to the Bishop of Lincoln ; South Leverton and East and West
Markham, to the Dean of Lincoln ; Orston, Edwinstowe, and Harworth, to
the common fund of the same church ; Stoke, Coddington, Farndon, Balderton,
Scarle, and Clifton, to various prebendaries of Lincoln; Colston Basset to Laund
Priory, Leicestershire ; Basford to Catesby Priory, Northamptonshire ; and
Newark to St. Katharine’s, Lincoln. ‘There were also three of those excep-
tional cases where vicarages were ordained in parishes in which there were
unappropriated rectories ; such were, at this time, Flintham, Laxton, and
Lowdham. These bring the total of vicarages up to sixty-eight, exclusive of the
several prebendal vicarages round Southwell. The prebends of Southwell
(which are discussed in the subsequent account of the college), together with
the common fund, &c., were taxed at an annual value of £342 135. 4d.
The cathedral church of Lincoln drew about as much as this out of the
greater tithes of the county of Nottingham ; the prebends alone being worth
£201 a year.

Another interesting feature of this return is the large number of small
pensions from churches or portions of tithes that went out of the county to
religious houses in other shires, in addition to various sums that went to
Lenton or other Nottingham houses and to the archbishop or chapter of York.
The abbeys or priories of Bayham, Beauchief, Belvoir, Bermondsey, Bolling-
ton, Bredon, Catesby, Croxton, Dale, Darley, Delapre, Elsham, Freiston, Grace
Dieu, Haverholme, Heynings, Langley, Laund, Newhouse, Peterborough,
Repton, Sempringham, Stamford, Swineshead, Torksey, and Ulverscroft were
all in receipt of pensions out of Nottinghamshire churches.

The very considerable value of many of the Nottinghamshire rectories
at this date is a proof of the fertility of a large share of the county, and of
the success attending the growing of corn crops. In addition to the high
value of the prebendal rectories attached to both Southwell and Lincoln, the
rectory of Orston was worth (60, of Ratcliffe on Soar £46 135. 4d., of
Bingham £53 6s. 8d., and of Blyth £50, whilst Marnham and several
others were worth upwards of £30.

The contrast between the annual value of the rectory and the vicarage
is usually somewhat striking. A few examples are set forth :—

Name Rectory Vicarage

Lo ou oad Ls a
Mansfield . : . : . 2613 4 5 0 0
Lowdham . ‘ . . « TO -0- oO 413 4
Colston Basset . : ‘ s) -30.-0~ 40 5. 0 0
Elkesley . F F ‘ . 25 6 8 4 6 8
Blyth ‘ ; . . - 50 0 0 I0 0 O
Laxton. : ‘ . . 23 6 8 5 6 8

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

But in some cases, as happens at the present day, a country vicar was
better off than a rector. A few of the rectories had a very low income ; thus
the rectories of Colwick, Nuthall, Eakring, and three or four others were only
worth £5.

There was a considerable increase in the number of appropriated
churches before the next taxation roll of benefices was drawn up in 1635,
known as the Valor Ecclesiasticus.

At that time there were 18 rectories and 14 vicarages in the deanery of
Nottingham ; 29 rectories and 14 vicarages in the deanery of Bingham ;
16 rectories and 27 vicarages in the deanery of Retford ; 15 rectories and
16 vicarages in the deanery of Newark ; and 1 rectory and 20 vicarages in
the jurisdiction of Southwell. This gives a total of 79 rectories and
gi vicarages. In three cases these rectories were in duplicate, for there
were two rectors in each of the three parishes of Cotgrave, Trowell, and
Treswell.

The 14th century opened with the episcopate of Thomas Corbridge, who
was consecrated Archbishop of York at Rome by Pope Boniface VIII, on
28 February 1300. There are but few incidents relative to the archdeaconry
of Nottingham recorded during his brief rule. In 1300 the archbishop
licensed the construction of a south aisle to the Nottingham church of
St. Peter, with an altar dedicated to St. Anne.”

On 31 May 1301 Corbridge received from William de Newark, Canon
of Southwell, a missal after the Use of York, which he promised to restore to
him whenever required.” He died at Laneham, Nottinghamshire, on
22 September 1304, and was buried in the collegiate church of Southwell on
Michaelmas Day.”

After two years’ vacancy, the see was filled by the appointment of
William Greenfield, who ruled from 1306 until his death in 1315. Arch-
bishop Greenfield licensed the consecration of the altar of Our Lady in
the church of the Carmelites, Nottingham, in 1308, and two years later he
licensed the Franciscan Friars of the same town to obtain consecration by any
Catholic bishop for their renewed church and its altars.”

The appropriation of the church of Saxondale and of medieties of the
churches of North Muskham and Shelford were sanctioned by the archbishop
in 1310-11.”

In 1312 Greenfield granted licence to the parishioners of Newark to
remove their chapel within the churchyard of their parish church, constructed
by Archbishop Henry de Newark (1296-9). Nothing had been given
towards its sustentation nor for the support of a perpetual chantry therein,
nor had it been in any way dedicated, and it stood deserted. ‘The space it
occupied was much needed for burial purposes. The archbishop ordered
that the timber, stone, lead, glass, and iron were to be used in the fabric of
the church. Special mention was to be made of Henry and all other
archbishops in the canon of the mass. The church of Newark a little later
became polluted by effusion of blood, and on 7 May 1313 a commission was
issued to Walter, formerly Archbishop of Armagh, to reconcile it.”

* Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 1004, 7 Raine, Hist. of York, 358. * Tbid. 360.
™ Ibid. 378. © Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 238. * Tid. fol. 239.
“Ibid. Walter de Jorge held the archbishopric of Armagh from 1306 to 131T.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

In November 1314 the parish church of Blyth was interdicted by the
archbishop for not having paid the fees of Thomas Bishop of Withern in
Galloway, who had been commissioned to reconcile it when it had been polluted
by the violent effusion of blood. No offices were to be performed in it except
the baptism of infants and the absolution of penitents near to death. The
convent of Blyth were to see that this interdict was observed, and when they
said mass it was to be with closed doors, in a low voice, and without ringing
of bells, the parishioners being rigorously excluded. A body that had been
brought privily to the church and buried was to be exhumed, nor was it to
be interred in the chapels of Bawtry or Austerfield or in any other dependen-
cies of the church of Blyth.®

Greenfield’s successor in the archbishopric, William de Melton, ruled
from 1317 until his death in 1340. Almost the whole of his diocese, with
the exception of the archdeaconry of Nottingham, suffered grievously from
the forays of the Scottish marauders. The rout at Myton-on-the-Swale went
by the name of ‘the Chapter of Myton,’ from the number of the clergy whom
the archbishop persuaded to enter the ranks to oppose the Scots. In No-
vember 1319 Archbishop Melton made an appeal to the abbot and convent of
Welbeck to help him in his great need ; he recited the very great losses he
had sustained in the Scottish war, wherein he had suffered the destruction and
waste of his manors of Hexham, Ripon, Otley, and Sherborne, particularly at
the battle of Myton, where he had lost all his plate and other valuables.
Similar letters were sent to the Nottinghamshire houses of Rufford, Shelford,
Thurgarton, Worksop, Lenton, Newstead, Blyth, and Mattersey.™

The following are some of the more interesting Nottinghamshire in-
cidents of Melton’s rule. In 1320 the Abbot and convent of Rufford entered
into obligations to entertain for a day and a night each Archbishop of York
on coming to his diocese ; a most exceptional step to be taken by a Cister-
cian house. ‘The archbishop issued a commission in 1323 to dedicate the
altars in the monastic church of Thurgarton, which had been reconstructed.
On 12 June 1326 the certificate of baptism and conversion of a Jew, named
Walter de Nottingham, in the church of St. Mary Nottingham, which had
taken place on Monday after the octave of the Holy Trinity of the previous
year, was entered in the diocesan register ; Sir Walter de Goushill and Sir
Richard de Whatton, knights, and Orframia wife of Robert Ingram of Not-
tingham, were the godparents. A further notice, apparently referring to the
same case, was entered by the archbishop in his register in March 1334,
stating that Walter Conversus, formerly called Hagyn in the Hebrew tongue,
was baptized at Nottingham on 30 June 1325. A further entry of about
the same date tells of the severe penance enjoined on Sir Peter de Mauley,
knight (an old offender), for adultery ; he was to fast every Friday in Lent,
Ember Days, and Advent for seven years on bread, water, and small beer, and
Good Friday and the Vigil of All Saints on only bread and water, to make
pilgrimages to the shrines of St. William of York, St. Thomas of Hereford,
the Blessed Virgin of Southwell, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of
Ripon ; and further to be fustigated or scourged seven times before the
Sunday procession in the usual scanty dress of penitents.®

8 Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 241. * York Epis. Reg. Melton, fol. 94.
5 Raine, Hist. of Archbps. of York, 415-19.
56

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

William de la Zouch who had been Dean of York since 1336, and who
was constantly employed by Edward III in various capacities, became Melton’s
successor in the episcopate in 1342, ruling the see of York until his death
just ten years later. That terrible event, the Black Death of 1348-9, over-
shadowed his rule.

He issued a pastoral in July 1348, of a most devout and earnest character,
urging that earnest prayer should be offered to turn away the scourge, with
special litanies and processions on Wednesdays and Fridays." Archbishop
Zouch seems to have been the first English prelate to foresee the coming
catastrophe ; the plague had been gradually sweeping over Europe from the
south during the earlier months of 1348, and on 7 July the first death in
England occurred at the port of Melcombe Regis or Weymouth. It did not
reach Nottinghamshire until February 1348-9.

The attack fell with dreadful severity on the religious houses of this county.
The superiors, with their more commodious rooms and better food, suffered
as heavily as any class. Among those who died in this fatal period were two
priors of Thurgarton and two of Shelford, the Abbot of Welbeck, the priors
of Blyth, Newstead and Felley, the warden of Sibthorpe and the master of St.
Leonard’s, Newark. More than half of the beneficed clergy perished ; out of

126 benefices, sixty-five were emptied.”

Among certain of the survivors of this awful calamity there was an out-
break of reckless debauchery ; but almost every county yields evidence that
one of the results was an awakening of religious earnestness, which not infre-
quently manifested itself{—in accordance with the spirit of the times—in the
founding of chantries whose priests were to offer masses for the souls of those
who had so suddenly perished, and also to assist the parochial clergy in sacra-
ments and sacramentals for the living. Nottinghamshire affords instances
of this in the founding in 1349 of two chantries in the great church of Newark,
and of a triple chantry at Clifton, near Nottingham.

On the death of Zouch in 1352, John Thoresby, a man of learning,
piety and munificence, was translated from Worcester to the see of York,
which he held till his death in 1373.% On 18 April 1364, Thoresby issued
a general mandate forbidding (as had often been done before) the holding of
markets, wrestling matches, archery, &c., in churchyards.* In September of
the following year he issued an order to the parishioners of Worksop to desist
from wrestling, archery, dancing, and singing in their churchyard.” The
chief care, however, of this excellent prelate was to endeavour, through the
spiritual agencies of the church, to dispel ignorance and to provide due intel-
ligible instruction for the people in the principles and articles of the Christian
faith. But his mandates in this respect, issued to all his archdeacons alike,
refer more appropriately to the county of York.

Alexander Nevill, Archbishop of York from 1374 to 1388, when he
was deposed as a devoted adherent to the cause of Richard II, made no par-
ticular impression on any part of his diocese ; and the same may be said of
Thomas Arundel, who was translated to the primacy of Canterbury in 1397.

°° Hist. Papers from Northern Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 395. Gasquet, Black Death (ed. 2), 173-

** There are many of Archbishop Thoresby’s letters in Cott. MS. Galba E. x, but none of them have
particular reference to Nottinghamshire.

® York Epis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 144. ” Raine, Hist. of Archips. y York, 462.

2 57 8

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

In 1389 returns were ordered to be made to the king in council as to the
ordinances, usages, properties &c., of the various gilds then established in
England. A considerable number of these returns are lost, but for most
counties a few yet remain in the Public Record Office.” Those of Notting-
hamshire are only four in number. Three of them relate to the respective
gilds of Corpus Christi (founded 23 Edward I), of Our Lady (36 Edward I)
and of the Holy Trinity (1339) in connexion with the parisl. church of
Newark.” The fourth pertains to a gild in the small parish of Owthorpe. The
certificate of this gild or fraternity states that it was founded in the church of
Owthorpe in honour of the Crucifix, and was entered in the chancery of the
king on the vigil of the Purification, 1389, by Robert Deltoft, master of the
gild. This brief certificate states that the brethren and sisters of the gild
assembled at a certain house in the town at Whitsuntide, when they chose a
master who ordered a brewing of two quarters of malt for an ‘ ale’ (ad quandam
potacionem), and the profits were used for the sustaining of the wax tapers
before the Crucifix or Rood. Each brother or sister gave half a pound of
wax on admission to the fraternity. The gild had but few goods or chattels
pertaining to it.”

There is little to be gleaned that is of moment with regard to the
ecclesiastical history of Nottinghamshire during the 15th century. Certain in-
teresting incidents arose from time to time in connexion with the development
and administration of the monasteries and of Southwell Minster, but all
these receive some attention in the subsequent accounts of the religious
houses.

John Kemp, who was translated from London to York in 1426 and
promoted to Canterbury in 1452, was probably the most generally unpopular
prelate throughout Yorkshire of all the prelates of the northern province.
He was for the most part a non-resident diocesan, though occasionally taking
shelter in his manor-house at Southwell. During the height of his well-earned
unpopularity in 1441, he complained to the king and council that when he
had issued processes against certain of the laity of his province for offences
within the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts, the mob had been instigated to
destroy mills, break down park palings and do other grievous damage to his
manors ; and that so far from being satisfied with these aggressions, they were
then threatening to attack his residence at Southwell. Upon investigation it
was found that the rioters had been instigated by the Earl of Northumberland.”
Kemp’s action in coming to the aid of Southwell in procuring the annexation
to the collegiate church of the property of the alien priory of Ravendale, co.
Lincoln, in 1452, was probably caused by gratitude for the peaceful retire-
ment that he occasionally found at Southwell.”

To the two Archbishops Booth and their attachment to Southwell, brief
reference is made in the account of that minster. The archbishop who ruled
between these two brothers, from 1465 to 1476, was George Nevill, the
brother of the great Earl of Warwick, whose high connexions involved him
in the grievous civil strife of that period. Nevill paid but the smallest atten-
tion to the spiritual affairs of his diocese, almost all his episcopal duties being

1 As to these Gild Returns, see Toulmin Smith, Engl. Gi ds (1870).

Cert. of Gilds, Chan. no. 385, 386, 387. * Ibid. no. 384.

“ Hook, Archbps. of Cant. v, 240. % Harl. MS. 3875, fol. 165.
58

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

discharged by commissioned suffragans, of whom William Egremont, Bishop
of Dromore, was the most usually employed. It is, however, to the credit
of Nevill that at a provincial council held at York in 1466 certain admirable
constitutions were promulgated by the archbishop. ‘By these he enjoined
every parish priest to expound to his people, in their mother-tongue, the
fourteen articles of faith, the ten commandments, the two evangelical precepts,
the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins cum sua progenie, the seven
principal virtues, and the seven sacraments of grace ; and he enters into along
explanation of these several points, so that they might know how to teach
their people.’ *

This is not the place in which to offer any kind of general opinions as to
the reformation of the Church of England, which began towards the close
of the reign of Henry VIII and was not crystallized until the restoration of
the episcopate and monarchy in 1660. It may, however, be remarked
that the reforming wave, so unworthily fostered by the king for his own
private ends, did not meet with so ready an acquiescence in the northern as in
the southern province. It wasnot until the month of May 1531 that the York
convocation consented, after long debate, to recognize the title of Supreme
Head. The see of York was at that time vacant. Wolsey’s death occurred in
November 1530, and it was not until 10 December 1531 that the vacancy
was filled by the consecration of Edward Lee.

Archbishop Lee’s sympathies were strongly on the side of the unreformed
faith, and he did his best in a vain endeavour to check the dissolution of
monasteries in his diocese. A Nottinghamshire example of his dealing with
those propagating heretical opinions in his diocese may be here cited from
his register. It is the elaborate recantation of a Dutchman who had settled
at Worksop ; the archbishop had apparently had various personal interviews
with him to persuade him of his errors :—

In the name of God, Amen. I Lambert Sparrowe, oderwyse callyd Lambert Hook,
douchman borne, now of the dyocese and jurisdiction of Yorke, accusyd and detectyd of
Heresie here before you most reverend Father in God, Lord Edward by Gods permission
Archbishop of Yorke Primate of Ingland and Legate of the See Apostolique, my Ordinary,
openly confesse and knowledge that I have heretofore openlie spoken and affirmed, and also
declaryd diverse erroniouse opinions and Articles against the true faith of Holy Church. . . .
I have diverse and sundry tymes affirmed and said within the parish of Wirksopp that there
is noe priest but God only—that the holy Sacrament of the Aultor is but bread—that noe
Bishop ne priest can assoile any man of his sinnes—that every man may baptize and
Christen as well as an oder—that tithes and oblations bee not due, ne ought to be
taken.

He further acknowledged to speaking against fasting, purgatory,
pilgrimages, pardons, &c., and that ‘mannys promise and womans touching
contract of matrimony is sufficient without any Solempnization of the
Church.’ His abjuration of every form of error was most detailed and
complete, pledging himself never again, by oath on the Holy Gospels, to
speak, declare, affirm, teach, pronounce, hold or believe anything contrary to
the teaching of the Church, ‘ne that I wolle hereafter use, reede, teach,
keepe, buy or sell any bookes, volumes, or queeres, or any workes callyed
Luthers or any odre mannys bookes of his Hereticall Sect . . . In witness:

% Diocesan Hist. of York, 202.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

whereof to this my present abjuration I have subscrybed my name and sett to
the \rasse,

The treatment of the large number of varied monastic establishments
that were suppressed in Nottinghamshire will be dealt with in detail in the
article on ‘ Religious Houses.’ One point in connexion with the suppression
of the Nottinghamshire religious houses, not noticed elsewhere, may be here
set on record, namely the sweeping away with the monks, canons, and nuns of
a great store of alms by which the poor of the county had to no small extent
benefited for centuries, without compensation. We do not now allude to the
almost universal distribution of broken victuals daily at the monastic gates,
the relief of the very poorest class of wayfarers, or the rule of assigning to the
poor after an inmate’s death the commons of the deceased for a whole year—
but to the actual obligatory alms that various houses were bound by their
statutes to distribute on specific days, often dating back to the very time of
their foundation. Among such obligatory alms were: Worksop £25 15. 4d.;
Welbeck £8 135. 4d.; Thurgarton £6 85. 1d.; Newstead £4; Blyth
£3 6s. 8d.; and Shelford and Wallingwells £2 65. 8d. each—yielding a total
amounting to {£52 2s. 8d. or considerably more than {500 a year accord-
ing to the present purchasing power of money.”

Lee’s episcopate, which ended with his death in 1544, was marked by
the alienation to the Crown in 1542 of various ancient episcopal manors,
including that of Southwell, in exchange for lands which had belonged to
certain of the dissolved priories. To this course of action, by which, it is
needless to say, the Crown profited, the archbishop was practically compelled
to submit. His successor, Robert Holdegate, an ex-canon of the Sempring-
ham Order, and a man of very different calibre, submitted so readily to
wholesale stripping of the emoluments of the see—including six Nottingham-
shire manors—within a few weeks after his translation, that there can be
little doubt as to this spoliation being a condition of his appointment.”

The obsequious Holdegate was in power during the reign of Edward VI.
The suppression of the chantries at this period was a far severer blow to the
general ordinances of religion than the dissolution of the monasteries, and
was carried out on like lines of spoliation, mitigated by pensions to the
dispossessed. It cannot be too plainly stated that the popular idea of a
chantry priest as a mere mass priest for the souls of the departed, with no
other functions attached to his office, is a complete misconception. The
chantry priests were often assistant parochial clergy, or, as we should now say,
curates, and occasionally had sole charge of detached places of worship at
some distance from the parish church, which served as chapels of ease to the
hamlets. In 1545 Henry VIII decided on appropriating the revenues
belonging to chantries, collegiate churches, and like foundations, and in that
year obtained an authorizing Act from his subservient Parliament.”

Few foundations, however, were actually dissolved under this Act
owing to the king’s death, but as a preliminary measure, commissions were
issued to take valuations of the properties and inventories of the chattels. A

864 York Epis. Reg. Lee, fol. 150. ” Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), passim.
% Sixty-seven manors in all were transferred to the Crown in exchange for the paltry grant of thirty-three
small impropriations and advowsons late pertaining to monasteries. See Drake, Hist. of Dork, 452.
% Stat. 37 Hen. VIII, cap. 4.
60

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

joint commission was issued for the counties of Nottingham and Derby dated
13 February 1545-6, addressed to Sir John Markham, kt., William Cowper
and Nicholas Powell, esqs., and John Wyseman, gent.’ The broad reasons
alleged for the suppression of chantries were that they were superstitious
and their possessions were wrongfully used ; and yet, save perchance in the
multitudinous chantries of the collegiate establishtnents of Southwell and
Newark, there does not seem to have ‘been a single case in Nottinghamshire
where the presence of these chantry priests could reasonably be said to be
superfluous if religious worship was to be duly maintained. It is to the credit
of the commissioners to note that, although they must have been well aware of
the intentions of the Crown, they had the courage in several instances to ex-
ceed their instructions and with laudable honesty to make plain the good
service that was being done by the priests supported by chantry endowments.

The commissioners were to survey and report on ‘All Chauntries,
Hospitalles, Collegies, Free Chappelles, Fraternities, Brotherhodes, Guyldes
and Salaries of stipendarie Pristes.’ Their reports on colleges and hospitals
are cited under the subsequent account of religious houses. With regard to
free chapels, the term is strictly applicable to chapels founded by the king
and free from the jurisdiction of the ordinary, but it was also sometimes
used of chapels under no obligations to the priest of the parish church. In
the case of Nottinghamshire the two or three that are thus styled by the
commissioners of Henry VIII and his successors are scarcely distinguishable
from chantry chapels or chapels of ease at more or less distance from the
parish church.

The stipendiary priest differed from the chantry priest inasmuch as he
had no perpetual endowment, but usually one for a given number of years ;
moreover, his position was occasionally unfettered by any stipulation for
masses for particular individuals. Thus as to the great parish of Blyth, with
its 400 communicants, the commissioners say :—‘ The Stipendare of Blyth
ordayned by diverse men in consideration that the parisshe is large and other
foundacyon the incumbente hathe nott butt that he prayethe for all cristian
soules and helpethe the vicare to serve there.’

At Rampton the parishioners in 1493 gave lands worth £4 16s. 7d. to
find a (stipendiary) priest for a hundred years, and as though foreseeing a
change, stipulated that at the end of a century the income was to be used in
marriage portions for poor maidens, in the relief of poor householders, or in
making of highways. At East Markham, where there were 400 communi-
cants, lands purchased by the parishioners sufficed to find an income of
£3 17s. 6d. for a stipendiary priest to help the vicar of this great parish.
At Walkeringham the commissioners found lands producing £4 a year,
which sum they were told was sometimes used to obtain the services of a
stipendiary priest and at other times for the repair of the church or the
‘“mendynge of the Trente bankes.’ Malling had a stipendiary priest (£4 65. 82.),
whose duties were to help the vicar and to teach the children. The
stipendiary priest of Lound in Sutton parish (£3 18s. 4d.) was neither
instituted nor inducted, but appointed by the parishioners there to serve God
“and to mynystre Sacramentes when nede requirethe bycause the parishe is

00 Chant. Cert. no. 13 ; Cert. no. 14 is a paper book which is for the most part an abstract
of no. 13.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

great,’ and the incumbent had no other help; the commissioners further
stated that the chapel at Lound had been built by the residents there so that
they might have mass three days a week, because it was a mile or more from
the parish church of Sutton, and that from 40 to 60 communicants
resorted there ‘daily’ (sic). At Sturton, where there were 400 communi-
cants, there was a stipendiary priest with an income of £4 25. 8d., and at
East Markham, with a like number of houseling folk or communicants,
there was another stipendiary with an income of £3 175. 6d.

At Clipstone, in Edwinstowe parish, there was a chapel a mile from the
parish church roofed with slate ; the priest’s chamber seems in this case to
have been under the chapel, for the commissioners say, ‘itt hathe no mancyon
butt a parlor under the chappell of no valewe.’ A chapel is also mentioned at
Harby, 2 miles from the parish church of Clifton, where there was a chantry
for Queen Eleanor, who died there in 1290. There was also a chapel of
St. Helen at Bingham, ‘ 2,000 ft.’ from the parish church.

The chantry of Tilne (£4 15. 4d.) was a chapel founded in 1311 in
Hayton parish to serve the hamlets of North and South Tilne, because the
waters often prevented the inhabitants coming to their parish church ; the
chapel was 2 miles from Hayton.

As to chantries proper, served by priests within the parish church, the
commissioners’ report expressly mentions their general utility in certain
instances. Thus at Annesley, of a chantry worth £4 16s. 7d. a year, founded
by Sir Robert Annesley and another, they say that it was ‘founded in
consideracion that there be diverse villages belonging to the parisshe of
Annysley wherof iij of them be distaunte from the parisshe churche and all
other Churches and Chappells a mile or more, for whiche cause the
chauntrie preste there shulde saye everye holy daye masse before the
parisshe matyns shulde be begoun and that done to assist the parishe preste
for the tyme being att mattyns, masse and evensonge, and on worke dayes to
saye masse and praye for the benefactors soulles of the said Chauntrie and all
Cristian soulles as more plainlye dothe appeare by the foundacyon of the
King’s license to the Commyssioners shewed.’

At East Retford, described as a market town greatly inhabited and of
much resort, there were 500 communicants and no one to help the vicar
save the priests of the chantries of Trinity and Our Lady; the mansion
house of these two priests had been lately burnt ; the chantries had been
founded by the bailiffs, burgesses, and commonalty, and one of the priests was
to serve as ‘a scolle master ther for the bryngyng upp of youthe in Godley
learnynge.’

The great parish of St. Mary’s Nottingham had more than a thousand
communicants ;" of the chantry of Our Lady, with an income of £8, it is
expressly stated that it was used partly for the relief of the poor, and that it
was founded ‘to be an ayde for the vicar.’

In a few other instances the destruction of the chantry involved a
distinct loss to the poor. Thus the chantry priest at Beckingham had to
furnish a bushel of wheat to be distributed to the poor in bread on Good
Friday. The chantry at Wollaton is a remarkable example ; it was worth

| According to commission of Edw. VI, 1400.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

£5 16s. 2d. a year, and out of this sum £3 10s. 6d. was distributed to
‘ bedefolk,’ leaving £2 5s. 8d. for the priest.

Other chantries within parish churches were those of Beeston, Caunton,
Coddington, Edwinstowe (280 communicants), Laxton, Mattersey, Mister-
ton (400 communicants), Misson (200 communicants), Ratcliffe, Rempstone,
Saundby, Sturton (400 communicants), Thorpe, Thurgarton, and Wil-
loughby.

One of the earliest actions of the council of the boy king Edward VI
was, in 1547, to procure a new Act by which these threatened chantries,
colleges, &c., might be suppressed and their revenues confiscated to the
Crown. A twofold plea was put forth for their suppression, namely that
they promoted superstition and that there was need of money for the
army ;' new commissions of survey were therefore issued for each county.
The Nottinghamshire commissioners, appointed on 14 February 1548, were
Sir Gervase Clifton, Sir John Hersey, and Sir Anthony Nevill, kts., and
William Holles, esq.° Their detailed report covers much the same ground
as that of their predecessors, but they were also expected to give the age of
incumbents (doubtless with a view to their pensions), and to state whether
they were learned or unlearned. How the latter fact could be ascertained
by the commissioners during their hasty visits to certain centres it seems
impossible now to conjecture. It has been stated that ‘unlearned’ meant
without a degree; but this is not possible when a considerable number
are entered as unlearned and a small minority as learned. The chantry
priest of Willoughby was ‘indifferently lerned’; of Saundby, ‘ meanley
lerned’ ; and of Annesley, ‘metely lerned.’ There is only one reference to
the universities: the stipendiary priest of Sturton was ‘a student at
Cambridge.’

Like their predecessors, these country gentlemen were bold enough to
set out the great need of these foundations, at all events in certain cases.
Thus of Annesley they say :—‘It ys reputed that in the parish of Annes-
ley there are above 260 parishioners and the parish being very large and
wyde and of greate dystaunce betwene the standing of the houses. They
have no more mynysters to helpe the Curate but thie Chauntry preiste.’ Of
South Leverton :—‘ The churchwardens there have deposed that there ys a
chappell within the parishe of South Leverton called the Chappell of
Cottam . . . dystant from the parishe Churche one myle and that there are
belonging to the sayd chappell 80 people that Receyvethe Communyon and
other rytes ecclesiastical. And further they saie that many tymes they are
environed with waters that they cannot come to their parish churche of
Leverton. For the whiche cause the churchwardens for the tyme being have
alwaies bene accustomed to Receyve the above named xxvjs. viijd. towards
the finding and maynteyning of a preist at the said chappell of Cottam.’

These commissioners were also required to report on the numerous small
endowments for providing lights in churches, as well as for obits for main-
taining the memory of deceased parishioners on the anniversary of their deaths.
As to bequests for lights or lamps, they were found in thirty-six parishes,
usually for a single lamp; but in some cases, as at East Markham, Hickling,
Maplebeck, and Thorpe by Newark, for divers lights.

™ Stat. 1 Edw. VI, cap. 14. 108 Chant. Cert. no. 37.
63

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

The usual idea as to an obit is that it was simply a fee to a parochial or
chantry priest for an anniversary mass; but this isa great mistake: the larger
portion of an obit endowment usually went to the indigent of the parish, so
that this Act of Suppression sometimes robbed God’s poor far more than His
ministers. The following is a table showing the proportional distribution of
obit money in a variety of Nottinghamshire parishes :—

NorrinGHAMSHIRE OBITS

Parish Total Poor Priest

nod, sn od n da

Beckingham . ‘ ; : 3 4 2 10 o 6
North Collingham . . - 13 4 10 0 3 4
Bole . ‘ : i . 2) af. Oo 20 © 20
Girton. : : ; : 3.0 2 8 Oo 4
Sutton Bonnington ‘ # T6090 If 0 2.6
Sutton on Trent . : . 2 4 I 10 oO. 6
Treswell : : o 7 o 6 o 1
Tuxford : ‘ ‘ s 23-4 16 4 7 0
Great Wheatley o 18 Oo 12 o 6

It therefore follows that the mass priest received about a fifth of the en-
dowment, the rest was distributed on such occasions to the poor. ‘Ten other
obits are entered by the commissioners, without the division being stated ; but
there is no reason to doubt that it would approximately follow a like proportion.

This grievous ejection of so large a number of the assistant clergy of the
county, coupled with the spoiling of the chantry chapels, where they were
detached buildings, even to stripping them of their roofs, must have proved
a serious set-back to religion. Lound, for instance, at that date lost a chapel
and remained for more than three centuries without a place of worship;
it was not till 1859 that a new chapel of the Church of England was there
erected.

The pension commission of Edward VI towards the end of his reign,
which is largely cited in the subsequent introduction to the Religious
Houses, gives full lists of all the dispossessed chantry and stipendiary priests
of the county.* The pension list drawn up for Cardinal Pole in 1554
shows that the discharged chantry priests of Nottinghamshire then numbered
exactly fifty (they lost their pensions if they obtained preferment), in addition
to six stipendiary priests.’

In the last year of Henry VIII, the king, anxious to prevent embezzle-
ment, caused inventories to be taken of the goods of churches and parochial
chapels, but only a few of these returns are extant. Further inventories were
drawn up under Edward VI in 1549, but no general confiscation resulted.
However, on 3 March 1551 the council, having used up the spoils gained
by the suppression of chantries, stipendiary priests and colleges, placed
on record their reason for taking further measures :—‘ That for as muche
as the Kings Majestie had neede presently of a masse of Money there-
fore Commissions should be addressed into all shires of Englande to take into
the Kinges handes such churche plate as remaigneth, to be emploied into his
Highness use.

4 Accts. Exch. K.R. 73. 6 Add. MS. (B.M.) 8102.
1 Acts of P.C. (new ser.), iii, 228.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

The inventories taken in 1552 for almost the whole of the Nottingham
churches are extant at the Public Record Office, though scattered about
among a variety of documents.” Two of the shorter inventories of country
churches are given as examples :—

Basford. ‘The inventory of all the goods and Juyles within the parishe churche of Basford
takyn the fyrst day of September in the vjth yere of the Reigne of oure Sovereyne lord Edward the
Syxth by the grace of god Kyng of England, France and yrland, etc.

Item ij albys.
sticks of brasse

The challes stolen in Maie quinto Item ij towellys. ij candyl-

Fyrste in the Stepull three Bellys

Item one Crosse of Lattyn

Item one Cowpe of velvyt of dyverse collours
Item one Vestament of Blew Satten

Item one Whyte Vestement of Fustyan

Item one Vestament of grene Sylke

Item one Vestament of velvett of dyverse colores

Shelforde (3d Sept. 6 Edw. 6)

Imprimis a chalyce and a patten sylver and
gylte

Item a pyxe off laten nott gylte

Item a crosse of coper gylte

Item ij crosses of wode covered with laten

Item a pare of censsers and a cryssmitory of
laten

Item ij laten candlestyckes: a holy water
stocke

Item in ye stepull iiij beelles and a sanctus

Item ij autaclothys. A Crystmatory

Churchwardens Hughe Rowell Robert Morris
Crystaine Tynmore vicar

Parishoners William Daneson, Henry Scheye
and Clement Grene 1%

Item ij hande beelles

Item a cowpe of grene satten bryges

Item a cowpe of Reed and blacke

Item a westement of damasske velvett

Item a westement and a tyvacle of Reyd
worsted

Item a westement of Reyd Sey

Item ij Vestmentes of Whytt fustian

Item ij Corparasses

Item ij Aulta clothes : iij towelles

beell Item a syrples and a Rochett

Out of this great mass of church goods other commissioners were expected
to leave behind a chalice, a bell, and a surplice, as the bare minimum
of what the council considered necessary for divine worship. There are
schedules extant of goods suffered to remain, or ‘deliverances’ as they are
usually termed, according to statements drawn up in May 1553, two months
before the young king’s death. One of these schedules, dated 6-8 May
1553, contains the deliverances to twenty-four churches of the hundred
of Rushcliffe ; in each case a chalice, with its accompanying paten, was
left behind, and from one to four bells."° At Colston Basset the com-
missioners on 26 May delivered to the churchwardens a silver chalice and
paten and four bells, and lest they should imagine themselves secure in the
possession of this remnant of the spoils of which they had been stripped,
added that these were ‘to be kept unspoilled unembescled and unsold untill
the Kinges Maties pleasure be therin furder knowen.’ At Littleborough
the commissioners left ‘ ij belles of one accorde with a sarvice bell hengginge
in the steple.’'™

The commissioners who superintended the spoiling of the Nottingham-
shire churches were Henry Earl of Rutland, Sir Gervase Clifton, and Sir G.

17 See printed list, with reference numbers for each inventory, by Mr. William Page, in 4ntig. xxviii,
267-9.
108 Aug. Off. Bks. 507, fol. 84. ™ Ch. Gds. (Exch. K.R.), 2%.
NO Ibid. 35. 1 Tbid. 5.

2 65 9

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Pierrepont. Their deputy, William Philpote, brought into the Jewel House, on
1 June 1553, 97 oz. of broken or damaged church plate of Nottinghamshire ;
54 oz. were parcel-gilt, and 43 oz. ‘ white’ or silver.'”

Under Queen Mary, Archbishop Holdegate, the ex-canon of the
Gilbertine Order, was deprived by reason of his marriage, and for a time
committed to the Tower."’ Holdegate was deprived on 13 March 1554;
he lived in retirement, being warned to exercise no episcopal functions,
and died in 1556."* The see remained vacant for some months; it was
not until January 1555 that Nicholas Heath was translated from Rochester
to York. Although there were various isolated cases of deprivation of
incumbents on account of marriage, there can be no doubt that the Marian
reaction was generally accepted by the clergy in Nottinghamshire as else-
where.

‘Archbishop Heath was a learned and most exemplary prelate, devout
in the exercise of his own personal religion, but mild and tolerant as re-
garded the conscientious convictions of those who took opposite views.’
The happy immunity which the north of England enjoyed from the
grievous persecutions of the later years of Queen Mary—an immunity in
which Nottinghamshire fully shared—was to a great extent due to the gentle
nature of Nicholas Heath, who put every impediment in the way of
making martyrs of the reformers. By his influence with the queen,
Southwell and five other Nottinghamshire manors were restored to the
archbishopric." With Mary’s death, on 17 November 1558, came the
end of Archbishop Heath’s ministration. In common with the whole of
the bishops, except Kitchin of Llandaff, Heath refused to take the oath of
supremacy under Elizabeth, and was deprived. Several of his episcopal
brethren were imprisoned; but the new queen fully recognized Heath’s
amiable qualities, and visited him on more than one occasion in his retire-
ment at Cobham in Surrey.”

Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity, to which was annexed the third revision
of the Book of Common Prayer, was passed on 28 April 1559."% By this
Act it was provided that the revised book should come into use on the
ensuing festival of St. John Baptist. In June commissions were issued to
inquire into the carrying out of the new regulations, and to secure the sub-
scriptions of the clergy to the book and to Elizabeth’s supremacy. The
visitors for the Northern Province were Edward Earl of Derby, Thomas _
Earl of Northumberland, William Lord Evers, several knights and esquires,
Edward Sandys, D.D., and Henry Harvey, LL.D.,; most of the work was
done by the last two. Their commission was dated 24 June 1559. The
full record of this visitation of the Northern Province has been happily
preserved."* The commission paid its first visits to the archdeaconry of
Nottingham.

The visitation was opened in the church of St. Mary, Nottingham, on
Tuesday, 22 August 1559. When prayers were ended, and a sermon had
been preached by Dr. Sandys, the preacher, with Sir Thomas Gargrave,

"Ch. Gds. (Exch. K.R.), 13. "3 «Sede Vacante Reg.’ Canterbury, fol 38.
4 Rymer, Foedera, xv, 370 3 Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Angi. 100. " Dioc. Hist. of York, 332.
N6 Ibid. "7 Thid. 334. M® Stat. 1 Eliz. cap. 2.

1? S.P. Dom. Eliz. x ; itis a volume of 400 pages. On the sub‘ect of the Elizabethan clergy and their
deprivation, see Gee, The Elizabethan Clergy (1898), and Birt, The Elizabethan Settlement (1907).

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Sir Henry Gates, and Dr. Harvey, proceeded to a place in the chancel duly
prepared (decenter ornatum) and caused the commission by the queen to be
read by Thomas Percy, notary public and registrar. Thereupon Robert
Cressy, official of the Archdeacon of Nottingham, produced the queen’s
citatory mandate for summoning the clergy and people of the deanery of
Nottingham to undergo visitation at that time and place, together with certi-
ficate of its execution and the names and titles of all thus summoned. All
cited were publicly called by name, and the commissioners pronounced
contumacious all those who did not appear. After Sandys had addressed an
exhortation to the people, the commissioners directed the lay parishioners
and churchwardens of each parish, having laid their hands on the Holy
Gospels, to furnish (after dinner at two o'clock) their answers to the articles
of inquiry. The clergy of all kinds (whether with or without cure) were
instructed to appear at the same time, to exhibit letters of orders, dispen-
sations, and other like instruments, and ‘to do further what justice and
equitable reason shall persuade.’

At the appointed hour the churchwardens and parishioners exhibited
their bills of detection, together with the inventories of their church goods.
After this, diligent examination was made as to the condition, teaching
(doctrina), and conversation of the clergy, each being severally examined and
exhibiting letters of orders and other documents. An immediate result was
that the parish church of Adbolton, being found destitute of a curate, was
sequestrated, and William Lee and Thomas Clay, two of the parishioners,
were appointed administrators.

On Thursday, 24 August, the commissioners were at Southwell holding
a visitation of the deanery of Newark, when three churches, namely Win-
thorpe, Edingley, and West Drayton, were sequestrated, as they lacked an
incumbent. On the following day the commissioners met in the chapter
house, Southwell, for the visitation of the collegiate church, when seven
prebendaries appeared by proxy, four prebendaries and four vicars-choral
appeared in person, four were absent without offering any excuse, whilst of
one no information was forthcoming. The most eminent of these prebendaries
who made no personal appearance was Robert Pursglove, the well-known
and much-esteemed suffragan Bishop of Hull; he appeared, however, by
proxy. Those who made no appearance were William Mowse, George
Gudley, George Lambe, Robert Snell, and William Saxye. In the result, of
the sixteen prebendaries of Southwell, five were certainly deprived, and six as
certainly conformed ; of the remainder three were almost certainly deprived,
whilst definite information is lacking as to two.

The commissioners took cognizance of morals, as at ordinary visita-
tions. Thus, at Southwell, Edward Baker of Winthorpe was presented for
living in adultery with Margaret Brewen. Baker made confession, and the
commissioners ordered him to appear in the market-place of Newark on
the Wednesday following, with bare feet and head, and in like manner on
the next Sunday in the parish church of Newark, plainly and distinctly
declaring before the people his confession according to a schedule delivered
to him.

On 26 August the visitors were at Blyth for the deaneries of Blyth and
Laneham. Here, in addition to the particular parochial and clerical visitations,

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

a suit as to a marriage celebrated in the church of West Drayton came
before the commissioners. The parishioners of Stokeham presented the vicar
of Drayton for not supplying them with a curate; the visitors ordered the
vicar to serve Drayton and Stokeham a/terms vicibus up to the ensuing Easter,
and from that day to supply Stokeham with a curate at his own costs. The
church of Fledborough was destitute of a curate, and was in consequence
sequestrated.

From Blyth the visitors passed on to Pontefract, where, on 28 August,
they began the visitation of Yorkshire. After record had been made of the
various visitation centres throughout the four northern dioceses, the register
contains the entries of ecclesiastical suits as to benefices brought before the
commissioners ; thus at Nottingham they dealt with the restitution of Oliver
Columbus to the rectory of Stanford, at Southwell with a dispute as to the
vicarage of Newark, and at Blyth with a dispute as to the rectory of Clay-
worth. This is followed by a list of institutions made by the visitors to
vacant benefices. At Nottingham they filled up the rectories of Treswell,
Keyworth, Lowdham, and Wollaton, and the vicarage of Leeds; at South-
well, the vicarage of East Markham and the rectory of Burythorpe; and
at Blyth, the rectory of Grove and the vicarages of Cropwell Bishop and
Wheatley.

The summary of Detectiones et Comperta is of much interest, and is
evidence of the thorough nature of the visitation, apart from the supremacy
and subscription questions. ‘The chancel of St. Mary’s, Nottingham, was in
great decay, and the windows unglazed ; and the churches of St. Peter and
St. Nicholas were in sore decay. The parishioners of St. Peter’s com-
plained that ‘the curate upon Sondaies and hollydaies after the Gospel dothe
not use the Lords Prayer the belief and the tene commandmentes.’ In none
of the three churches was there a register book kept. North Clifton had no
curate for two years; Adbolton no service for the like period ; at West
Drayton, Bawtry, and Stockwith, ‘no curate this xij moneth’; Hovering-
ham, ‘long without a curate’; Lenton, neither vicar nor curate ; Whatton,
vacant since Candlemas ; and Attenborough, cure unserved. The parishioners
of Bunny, East Retford, Tuxford, Edingley, and Sturton were content simply
to present that they had ‘no curate.’ At Kirkby in Ashfield the rector
was non-resident, and the parishioners complained that he gave nothing
to the poor; at East Stoke the vicar was non-resident, and they had had
no service since Midsummer Day; and at Balderton ‘the parson ys not
resident.’

Whatever may be said of monasteries, the neglect of the chancels of
their appropriated churches can hardly ever be brought against them. But
after their suppression the lay rectors were frequently neglectful of their
responsibilities. There were several cases of such neglect in Nottingham-
shire. At Lowdham both chancel and church were in great decay ; at
Winthorpe the chancel was uncovered ; and at Calverton the chancel had
nearly fallen down. The presentments of the chancels of Clayworth, Bever-
cotes, Wheatley, and Bothamsall are almost equally grave. At Stanton,
Eaton, and Balderton, the churches were in general decay.

The prebendal houses of Southwell were in decay, and a like report
was made of the vicarages of Cropwell, Stoke, and Eaton.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

The parishioners of Bunny, Lowdham, Whatton, Carlton, Hawton,
Stapleford, and Scarrington, reported that their books, supplied in the reigns
of Henry VIII and Edward VI, such as communion books and Erasmus’s
Parapbrase (and in two instances Bibles), had been burnt in the time of Queen
Mary. In one or two cases it was reported that they had been handed over
to Mr. Cressy, the archdeacon’s official, for this purpose; this must have
been rather awkward for Cressy, for he was in attendance on the Eliza-
bethan visitors.

At the end of this visitation register the names of the clergy who failed
to appear are set forth. The Nottinghamshire absentees, including the
prebendaries of Southwell, amounted to about fifty. The incumbents who
did not respond to the summons to this royal visitation were the rectors or
vicars of Attenborough, Barton, Beckingham, Bole, Bonnington, Broughton,
Carlton, Clayworth, Clifton, South Collingham, Colston Basset, Cotgrave,
Cromwell, East Drayton, Egmanton, Epperstone, Finningley, Fledborough,
Gamston, Gotham, Gringley, Harworth, Hawksworth, Hawton, Holme,
Kirkby in Ashfield, Laneham, Great or East Leake, North Leverton, Mis-
terton, North Muskham, Normanton, Owthorpe, Rampton, Rolleston, South
Scarle, Thorpe in the Glebe, Warsop, South Wheatley, Widmerpool, and
Worksop. At this stage in the proceedings the absentees were pronounced
contumacious ; but there is no doubt that the majority of these Nottingham-
shire clergy eventually acquiesced in the change. .

The first Elizabethan Archbishop of York was Thomas Young, trans-
lated from St. David’s early in 1561. In the course of a few years Young
procured the consecration of a suffragan under the title of Bishop of Not-
tingham.. Richard Barnes, born at Bold, Lancashire, in 1533, a fellow of
Brasenose, Oxford, B.A. in 1553 and M.A. in 1557, after holding small
preferments, became chancellor and canon residentiary of York in 1561. On
4 January 1567 he was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of Nottingham by
Archbishop Sandys and others in York Minster.”° On the report of the death
of the Bishop of Carlisle in April 1570, Sir Henry Gates wrote to Cecil
recommending that Richard Barnes, Bishop of Nottingham, should be pro-
moted to that see,” and he was elected Bishop of Carlisle in the following
June. Barnes gained high favour with Burghley, and was promoted to the
very wealthy see of Durham in 1577.

There seems no reason to think that Barnes in any way left his mark on
the county whose name he bore for some three years. He seems to have
acted as suffragan for the whole diocese ; at all events he resided in Yorkshire
all the time he was Bishop of Nottingham, either in the city of York or at
Stonegrave Rectory, which he held together with the rectory of Stokesley
and his prebend.

Nottinghamshire enjoyed a far greater measure of religious peace under
a succession of Elizabethan archbishops than was the case with several of
her neighbours, particularly Derbyshire. The recusants who clung to the
unreformed faith were not numerous in this archdeaconry, and there was but
little harrying of those who declined to conform, whether Papists or Puritans.
The most pious and learned of these prelates, Archbishop Sandys, not

™ Pat. g Eliz. pt. xi, m. 33.
41 $.P. Dom. Eliz. Ixvii, 78.
69

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

infrequently resided at Southwell; it was there that he died and was buried
in 1588.

We are not aware of any particularly stirring incident in the ecclesi-
astical history of the county until the beginning of those combined civil
and religious disorders which resulted in the temporary establishment of
the Commonwealth. Nottinghamshire opinions seem at the outset to
have been fairly evenly divided, as was the case in several of the midland
shires. The policy of Archbishop Neile, who held the York diocese
from 1631 until his death in October 1640, was that of a staunch Church-
man and warm ally of Laud. He did much towards repairing and adorning
the churches of the Nottingham archdeaconry, and when he visited South-
well he took order for a quire service there.” This line of action naturally
gave great offence to those who were puritanically disposed; and the
latter received much support from Bishop Williams of the adjacent diocese
of Lincoln. On the death of Neile, Williams, Laud’s chief rival, was
translated to York, but was driven from his new diocese in the follow-
ing year.

In 1641 a petition was presented to Parliament from the county and
town of Nottingham, subscribed by ‘above 1,500 hands of Esquires, Gentle-
men, and Yeomen,’ complaining of grievances under the ecclesiastical govern-
ment by archbishops and bishops, and setting forth in much detail in an
annexed schedule the heads of their grievances, and outlining a Presbyterian
government, under an elected county moderator, as preferable. The whole
forms a small quarto tract of twenty-eight pages.”* Some of the grievances
are of a local nature, and others somewhat curious and unexpected. A sub-
heading is concerned with the exactions of money from parishes through
the churchwardens, as in the transmitting of copies of registers to York, ‘ for
which if not brought in their time they take what they list’; also ‘for
Pentecostall offerings to the Collegiate Church of S: upon unknowne or
superstitious originall.’ One form of discountenancing preaching and
hearing of God’s Word was alleged to be the ‘ Hindering the full Audience
of Sermons and withdrawing the opinion of the use of Churches for Auditories,
by pulling downe Lofts in great Congregations.’ In another place the church
authorities of the county are charged with ‘ Preferring the Communion
Table to the East end of the Chancell, turning it to the posture and name of
an Altar, advancing it with new steps to it, rayling it with single or double
Rayles, placing a Canopie over it, Tapers by it, Crucifixes or other super-
stitious Images upon over or above it, appropriating peculiar parte of service
to it . . . bowing to the Altar upon approaches, and in comming and in
kneeling to the Rayle for the Sacrament.’

A large number of county petitions against episcopacy reached the
House of Commons in January and February 1640-1 ; they mostly followed
a form adopted by the ministers of London and its district, which was sub-
mitted to a committee of thirty on g February, after considerable debate.
On 19 February petitions from Cheshire and Devon reached the committee,
and those from Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, Oxfordshire, and Bucking-
hamshire on 23 February.

12 Dioc. Hist. of York, 376. '3 Thomason Tracts, E. 160 (4).
4 Shaw, Engl. Ch. during the Civil Wars, i.
79

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

In reply to this petition, an influential counterblast was speedily presented
to the High Court of Parliament asserting that the petition from Notting-
hamshire in favour of abolishing episcopacy and making other alterations had
been signed and presented without the petitioners’ knowledge or consent.
They expressed their desire that the long-established government of the church
might continue ‘ free from the abuse and errors of some particular persons,’
adding, ‘ We likewise humbly crave the Booke of Common-Prayer, by Law
established, may continue in force, with such alterations (if there be cause)
as to your Honours Wisdomes shall seeme meet.’ The broadside on which
this brief petition is printed concludes with a note stating that it had been
subscribed by one viscount, five knights, above a hundred gentlemen of
quality, all the clergy of the county, and above a thousand commoners,
‘being all of them Communicants’ ; but unfortunately no names are given.”

Another reason why there was a real revival of churchmanship in this
county and a sincere attention to decency of worship may have been owing
to the fact that William Robinson, the Rector of Bingham and Archdeacon of
Nottingham from 1635 until his death in 1642, was brother by the mother’s
side to Archbishop Laud.

Among those who were ejected at the beginning of the Puritan move-
ment was John Neile, a prebendary of Southwell, and Archdeacon of Cleve-
land, who was a nephew of Archbishop Neile. He eventually settled at
Farnsfield in this county, where he resorted to teaching, and ‘made a hard
shift to live till the year 1660,’ when he was made Dean of Ripon. Other
ejected clergy were the incumbents of Keyworth, Clifton, Widmerpool,
Ruddington, East Retford, and Holme Pierrepont. The rector of East and
West Leake was ‘seized and carried prisoner towards Nottingham, at which
time being forced to lie in a waggon in the fields he got a palsie of which he
died.’ Dr. More, Rector of Ordsall, is said to have been sequestered ‘ for
three times playing cards with his own wife.’

The elaborate system of Presbyterian church government formulated by
the Parliament in 1644 took some hold in this county. After the general
failure of State Presbytery, the voluntary organizations on this basis remained
well established in the parishes round Nottingham during the later period of
the Commonwealth, and were even kept alive for a very short period after the
Restoration. The notes of the Nottingham Classis are extant from June
1656 to June 1660. The attendance of ministers at first numbered about
thirty. Their chief concerns were maintaining of discipline and ordination.
At their last meeting they were engaged in trying some elders elected for
St. Mary’s, Nottingham.”

The thirteenth volume of the important collection of the original series
of the Commonwealth Survey of Livings among the Lambeth MSS. is con-
cerned with those of the Dean and Chapter of Norwich, and of the counties
of Northumberland and Nottingham. ‘The Nottinghamshire livings occupy
folios 199 to 444. The livings of the wapentake of Broxtow were dealt with
at an inquisition held at the Shirehall, Nottingham, on 14 August 1650,
before John Hutchinson, Gervase Pigot, Robert Raynes, Nicholas Charlton,

5 Thomason Tracts, 669, fol. 4, 36. 126 Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy, passim.
127 Shaw, Hist. of Ch. during the Commonwealth, ti, 161-2, 452-3. These Notts. notes have been printed
by the Chetham Soc. xl, 153-7.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

and Clement Spelman, esquires, and John Martyn, gentleman, and a sworn jury
of fourteen. The result of the evidence laid before them is summarized in the
following table :—=

Parish Benefice Minister =
Mansfield with Skegby . Impropriate Rectory, £1 > : _ =
3 4 si Vicarage, £30 WNonieistes cise! ui! cae Se _
Mansfield Woodhouse. | Impropriate Rectory, £110. — os
7 3 .| Vicarage, {20 . . . | Edward Momsley . | Preaching minister
Sutton in Ashfield . ./ Impropriate Rectory, £90 : = =
. .| Vicarage, £4 135. 4¢. . .| Nicholas Hazard . | Preaching minister
Kier in Ashfield - .| Rectory, £100 . . . .| John Hoyland . . 7
Teversal . . «= (PRéetory, J SO. <-_ . | William Smithson . 5
Selston . <2 w @ & Impropriate Rectory, £80 ; —_ —
= Be sap. pe Na Carape TO” 5 Samuel Tildon . .| Preaching minister
Trowell { Rectory in two medieties of Henry Denham. . ee
eo ele + £35 each Nicholas Clarke. . »
Bulwell's: 6 cia 2 a Rectory, £4Ous aes . | Matthew Lacocke . _
Hucknall . 2... Impropriate Rectory, £40 F = =
5% - + « . . Vicarage, £13 6s. 8¢. . .} Henry Hatton . . | Preaching minister
Linby . . . . . . Rectory, fo. . . . .| Richard Walker. .|‘A preaching minister, but a
drunkard and a common
| swearer ’”
Amnoldie: on. Glin Sy Impropriate Rectory, £70 . = —
Be ae we, Sele a, cy Watarape~f 30: 2's . | Peter Fullwood. . | Preaching minister
Greasley cum Membris .. Impropriate Rectory, fink. —_— =
$3 3 .| Vicarage, £10 . . Mr. Turner. . ./| Preaching minister
Attenborough. . . .| Impropriate Rectory, £160. _ —
5 - . . «| Vicarage, [20 . . a Anthony Wood. .!‘A godly preaching minister

and well affected to the
Parliament’

Wollaton . . . . «| Rectory, £20. . . | John Wagstafie . . | Preaching minister
Cosa ne ok oe Rectory, 10. . . . . ee ”
Bilborough cum Broxtow | Rectory; £40. 2 4 «a s! William Fox. dina ”
Stapleford . | Impropriate Rectory, {40 . | _ _
ss igs alo et Sel Wea rape hee sa . . Mr. Leigh . . .| Preaching minister
Radford . . . . «| Impropriate Rectory, — _—
£23 65. 8d. |
3 - 1 « « .| Vicarage, £12. . . .' Robert Malham. .| Preaching minister
Annesley . . . . .{|Impropriate Rectory, £16 . | _ _
% mone gap Vicanager YS ayia. oe dg" NON es ae KS =
Lenton. . . . . .|Impropriate Rectory, 46 3 —_ =
Sy oe Sse Vicarage, {7 -.~ 3 . | Robert Ollorenshaw | ‘ Preaching minister at present,
but is a drunkard and of an
ill conversation ’
Basford. . . .« .|Impropriate Rectory, £55 . — —
eo oe 8 . + «| Wicarage, £18 . . | George Hickson. .| Preaching minister
Bramcote . . . . «| Impropriate Rectory, £39 ‘ _ —
BA gs 8a, ete | Wicatagey iG. an cece as —_ ‘No settled minister at present,
but hire one every other
Lord’s day’

Strelley. . . . . «| Rectory, £35. . . . .|Abraham Gorbes .| ‘Lives in the parsonage, but
is sequestered from the said
liveinge by reason of his
delinquency to the Parlia-
ment’

Eastwood . . . . ./ Rectory, £40. . . | Thomas Howet. .| Preaching minister

Beeston. . . . . .| Impropriate Rectory, £50. — =

Vicarage, [30 . . . | William Westby. | ‘A godly honest painefull min-
ister and well affected’

” . . .

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

The commissioners for this wapentake made two recommendations as to
the amalgamation of livings, namely that Skegby should be united to Sutton
in Ashfield, and that Papplewick should be united to Linby.

With the restoration of the monarchy came the revival of episcopacy.
A generous period of grace was allowed up to 24 August 1662 for the
withdrawal of those Presbyterian or Independent incumbents who could not
conscientiously accept ordination and the use of the Book of Common
Prayer. According to Calamy’s list the following incumbents were on that
date ejected, namely the vicars of Arnold, Beeston, Bleasby, Blidworth,
Calverton, Flintham, Greasley, Kirton, Kneesall, Mattersey, Nottingham
(St. Mary and St. Peter), Rolleston, Southwell, Sutton in Ashfield, and
Thrumpton ; and the rectors of West Bridgeford, Clayworth, Collingham,
Cotgrave, Cromwell, Eakring, and Linby. But out of this total of twenty-
three, ten afterwards conformed.!*

Of the ejected ministers of this county, the only one of any eminence
was Joseph Truman. He was born at Gedling in 1631. He graduated at
Clare College, Cambridge, B.A. in 1650, and M.A. 1654. He was placed
by the Presbyterians in the rectory of Cromwell in 1657. At the Restora-
tion he declined to use the Book of Common Prayer, because, as Calamy
reports, ‘there were lies in it.” After ejection he resided in Mansfield, and is
said to have always attended the services of the Established Church. In
1669 he published a theological work of close and subtle reasoning entitled
‘The Great Propitiation,’ and was afterwards engaged in considerable literary
controversy with Bishop Bull. He died in 1671.”

It is a common mistake to suppose that the Commonwealth period was
a time of general toleration of religious beliefs. The Presbyterians and
Independents, as well as the much smaller body of the Baptists, concluded a
truce ; but for Anglicans, Romanists, Quakers, and Unitarians, there was little
but persecution. The Quakers as a rule suffered the most severely, though
it must in common fairness be admitted that their continuous interruption
of the worship of others was most provocative, and that their objection to the
payment of tithes naturally brought them into collision with the authorities. ‘The
Quakers, in direct contradiction to their eventual development, were by far the
noisiest and most aggressive of the sectaries during the earlier period of their
history. George Fox, their founder, born at Fenny Drayton, Leicestershire, in
1624, was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Nottingham.’” His first imprison-
ment occurred in that town in 1649. Besse, the 18th-century historian of
the Quakers, acknowledges that this imprisonment was caused by ‘his opposition
to one of the public preachers.’ After a eulogy as to the holy zeal and
fervency of his preaching, he naively adds, ‘ Nevertheless, some took offence
at his appearing in their place of worship, and the officers of the parish took
him away, and put him into a nasty stinking prison.’’* His earliest recorded
convert at Nottingham was a widow named Elizabeth Hooton, who became
the first woman preacher of the society. After serving his term of imprison-

"8 Calamy, Nonconformist’s Memorial (ed. 1775), ii, 275-300.

1 Dict. Nat. Biog. &c. 90 Thid. sab voce.

131 His imprisonment at Derby, where the nickname of Quaker had its origin, occurred in 1650; V.C.H.
Derb. ii, 29.

™ Besse, Sufferings of the Quakers (1753), i, 551-2. Chapter xvi of vol. iis entirely concerned with
Nottinghamshire.

zZ 73 10

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

ment at Nottingham for brawling in church, Fox proceeded to Mansfield
Woodhouse, and there followed out the same tactics, delivering his testimony
to the congregation inchurch. Here his conduct provoked much violence,
and after a rough experience in the stocks he was stoned out of the town.

Besse records several imprisonments and distresses in 1658 in this county
for non-payment of tithes. John Cowper of Skegby, for refusing to pay 16s.
of tithes, had three cows taken from him worth £10. William Clayton of
Elton, for large arrears of tithes, is said to have had goods taken from him to
the value of £22, and also to have been imprisoned for upwards of three years.
William Smith of Besthorpe, Edward Langford of North Collingham, and
Thomas Elsham of Girton also suffered considerable imprisonment for unpaid
tithes. During the same year Mary Leadbeater and Anne Fricknall were set
in the stocks at Mansfield Woodhouse ‘for some words they had spoken
displeasing to a priest (i.e. an Independent minister) there,’ whilst Robert
Wild of Wollaton was fined £3 65. 8¢. for not putting off his hat in court.

In 1659 a mob broke up a meeting of Quakers, using much violence.
In April 1660 Elizabeth Hooton the woman preacher, ‘ passing quickly along
the road, was met by one Jackson, priest of Selston, who abused her, beat her
with many blows, knockt her down, and afterwards put her into the water.’
During this latter year Besse records the names of thirty-six Quakers who
were imprisoned in the town and county gaols of Nottingham for refusing to
take the oath of allegiance to Charles II, in addition to others for refusing
to pay tithes. From this time forward, until peace came in 1688, the
Quakers of Nottingham were severely harried throughout this county, not
only as to tithes, but more especially for illegal gatherings under the
Conventicle Act. Besse states, and he sets forth many names and particulars,
that the then immense sum of £598 10s. rod. was taken from the Notting-
hamshire Quakers in 1670, through goods seized by distress on account of
their religious meetings. The goods seized in 1676 from Edward Wood, a
wheelwright of Eakring, for a meeting held at his house, and from four of
those who were present, amounted to £63 15. 6d. Several meetings held
during that year at the house of John Seaton of Blyth produced the astounding
total of £348 16s. 10d. Robert Thoroton seems to have been the most severe
of the justices in the suppression of conventicles ; warrants under his hand and
seal to the constabies, churchwardens, and overseers of Wellow, Sutton in
Ashfield, and Hucknall, are printed by Besse.

In 1659 a sheet was printed for Thomas Simmons at the ‘ Bull’s Mouth,’
Aldersgate, subscribed with the initials G.F. for George Fox, headed—
“Surely the Magistrates of Nottingham are blinde, as though they had never
read the Scriptures, have they cast a man into prison for saying, “‘ The Scrip-
tures were not the Living Word.” ’™

Charles the Second’s celebrated ‘ Indulgence’ was published on 15 March
1672. It was thereby declared, on the authority of the king in council, that
all penal laws against Nonconformists and recusants should be suspended, and
that a sufficient number of places of worship should be allowed for all
Nonconformists (save Papists), but that none should meet at any place until
the place of meeting and the teacher of the congregation had been approved
and registered. Nottingham eagerly embraced this opportunity.

13 B.M. 1865, C. 15 (9).

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

The number of Nonconformist ministers licensed in this county were
nine Presbyterian, six Congregational, and two Baptist. The following
lists show the places in which buildings for Nonconformist worship were
licensed, or where Nonconformist ministers resided.

Presbyterian (15) : Adbolton, Beeston, Bingham, Blyth, Bole, Carburton,
Clipston Ironwood, Eastwood, Greasley, Halam, Mansfield, Newthorpe,
Nottingham, Thrumpton, and Watnall.

Congregational (12): Arnold, Ashfield, Barton, Cotgrave, Flintham,
Kersall, Markham, Merton, North Collingham, Nottingham, Skegby, and
Woodborough.

Baptist (6) : Carlton, Collingham, Muskham, Norwell, Scarle, and
Sutton."

The great majority of these licences were for dwelling-houses, but at
Nottingham, where the Presbyterians were strong and courageous, the
following applications were sent in before 15 April 1672 :—John Whitlock,
at the Town Hall; William Reynolds, at the County Hall; John Barrett, in
the Spice Chamber in the room under it, anciently called the Old Shambles ;
and Samuel Cotes, in the Free School.’

This well-intentioned indulgence was, however, of very brief duration.
Owing to the action of Parliament, it was cancelled within a twelvemonth,
the king on 7 March 1673 breaking with his own hand the impression of
the great seal attached to it.

The interesting and pathetic Nonjuring movement of the beginning of
William and Mary’s reign made little impression on the diocese of York at
large ; there were probably few counties less affected by it than Nottingham.
Two, however, of the beneficed clergy, namely the vicars of Marnham and
North Clifton, resigned rather than abjure their old oath of allegiance, and
George Knight, curate of Keyworth, also joined the nonjuring ranks. ‘There
was also one ecclesiastic of eminent position who must be named, although
not resident in the county. Dr. Crowbrough, who was a staunch nonjuror,
was canon not only of York but also of Southwell, and was Archdeacon
of Nottingham from 1685 until his deprivation in 1690.

One of the few men of much note in the ecclesiastical world at all
closely connected with Nottinghamshire in the 18th century was William
Warburton, the author of the Divine Legation of Moses (1737) and a celebrated
controversialist. He was the second son of George Warburton, town clerk
of Newark. In 1727 he was appointed to the vicarage of Greasley. From
1760 until his death in 1779 he held the bishopric of Gloucester.

The great itinerant evangelist, John Wesley, was a frequent visitor to this
county. The first time Nottingham is mentioned in his Sourna/ is on
Thursday, 11 June 1741, when ‘the Society’ met him in the evening. On
the following Sunday he preached at 8 o’clock in the forenoon in the market
place to an ‘immense multitude,’ and met with very little opposition. Wesley
was dissatisfied with his small ‘society ’ at Nottingham, and in March 1745
he cut off all triflers and worldly walkers at a stroke, ‘ leaving only that little
handful who (as far as could be judged) were really in earnest to save their
souls.’ His occasional subsequent visits to Nottingham were uneventful, and

™4 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1672-3, p. liv. 8 Thid. 1671-2, p. 326.
6 See list at end of Overton’s Nonjurors (1902).

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

only obtained very brief mentions in his journal. The reason for this appears
from an entry of Thursday, 20 March 1766, when he records having preached
there ‘in the new house throughly filled with serious hearers. Indeed there
is never any disturbance here ; and there could be none anywhere, if the magis-
trates were lovers of peace and exerted themselves in defence of it.’ He had
intended to preach in the market-place on the following Sunday; buta heavy
fall of snow in the night rendered this impracticable.

On Sunday 22 July 1770, Wesley preached at Misterton in this county
at 8 a.m.; at I p.m. at a place half a mile from Haxey Church ; and at
5 p.m. at Epworth Cross, where he found the largest congregation he had
seen in Lincolnshire. He was at this date 68 years of age. At five in the
evening on the following Sunday he preached in Nottingham market-place
—‘thousands upon thousands flocked together, and all were still as night.’
On the next day he preached at Bingham, where he did not form a high
idea of the mental capacity of his audience :—‘I really admired the exquisite
stupidity of the people. They gaped and stared, while I was speaking of
death and judgment, as if they had never heard of such things before. And
they were not helped by two surly, illmannered clergymen, who seemed to be
just as wise as themselves.’

At noon on Sunday, 7 March 1776, Wesley preached at Stapleford,
standing in a meadow, as no house could contain the congregation ; but the
assembly was as nothing to that which gathered round Nottingham Cross in
the evening. When at Nottingham in the following year, he wrote :—
‘There is something in the people of this town which I cannot but much
approve of ; although most of our Society are of the lower class, chiefly
employed in the stocking manufacture, yet there is generally an uncommon
gentleness and sweetness in their temper, and something of elegance in their
behaviour, which, when added to solid vital religion, make them an ornament
to their profession.” In May 1780 Wesley met with a curious experience
at Newark. Preaching there on a weekday evening to a crowd of two or
three thousand people, ‘a big man, exceeding drunk, was very noisy and
turbulent, till his wife (fortissima Tyndaridarum) seized him by the collar, gave
him two or three hearty boxes on the ear, and dragged him away like a calf.
But at length he got out of her hands, crept in among the people, and stood
as quiet as a lamb.’ In the following June Wesley had an unpleasant
experience at Worksop ; he had been asked to preach there, but on his arrival
found that they had not fixed on a place. ‘ At length they chose a lamentable
one, full of dirt and dust, but without the least shelter from the scorching sun.
This few could bear. So we had only a small company of as stupid people
as ever I saw.’

On 4 February 1784 Wesley was again in Nottingham and preached a
charity sermon for the General Hospital. He preached at Misterton ona
Sunday in June 1786; on that day he entered in his journal, ‘I was grieved
to see so small a congregation at Haxey church. It was not so when
Mr. Harle lived here. O what a curse in this poor land are pluralities and
non-residence.’

The energy of the aged evangelist was marvellous in his declining years.
On Wednesday, 7 February 1787, when he was 85 years of age, Wesley was
preaching at Brentford and at Lambeth. Being earnestly desired by the Society

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

at Newark to come and open their new house, he took the mail-coach on Friday
the gth in the evening, and reached Newark about four in the afternoon of
the following day. He had, however, so heavy a cold and so little voice
that he could not preach that evening. On Sunday, having partly recovered,
he preached in the new meeting house at nine, and again at half-past five,
when the service was attended by the mayor and aldermen and there was a
great crowd. In November of this year Wesley paid his last visit but one to
Nottingham. He described the ‘ preaching house as one of the most elegant
in England,’ and stated that he had a ‘ lovely congregation.’ He preached a
charity sermon for the County Infirmary, which he praised in enthusiastic
fashion. In June of the same year(1787) he preached at Misterton and at
Newby near Haxey, and on Sunday 13 July at Nottingham for the last time.

The church history of Nottinghamshire for the first forty years of the
19th century was uneventful, and was distinguished by no men of special
eminence. There were few counties in England which benefited more than
Nottinghamshire from the Statutes which did away with the holding of
benefices in plurality, an evil that had been rampant for fully six centuries.

The incorporation of Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1836 speedily
began to work for good in this shire. The alteration in the establishment of
Southwell is referred to in the subsequent account of that minster church.
The statute 6 & 7 William IV, cap. 77, in its wholesale readjustment of the
revenues, patronage and extent of the episcopal sees, took Nottinghamshire
out of the province and diocese of York and transferred it to the province of
Canterbury and the diocese of Lincoln, which was otherwise much reduced
in size.

When Dr. Christopher Wordsworth was consecrated to the see of
Lincoln in 1869, that learned and most zealous prelate found that the work
involved in the episcopal supervision of the two counties of Lincoln and
Nottingham could not be maintained with efficiency. Inthe first year of his
episcopate, Bishop Wordsworth petitioned the Crown ‘that he might have
the assistance of a bishop suffragan according to the ancient use of this realm
before and after the Reformation.” The petition was granted and in accor-
dance with the suffragan Act of Henry VIII, two names were presented to
the Crown. The choice fell upon Henry Mackenzie, Archdeacon of
Nottingham, and on 2 February 1870 he was consecrated at St. Mary’s,
Nottingham. A particular interest was given to the service by the presence
of Alexander Lycurgus a bishop of the Greek Church.”

Bishop Mackenzie died on 15 October 1877, and in the following
December he was succeeded as suffragan Bishop of Nottingham by Edward
Trollope, who died in December 1893.

Bishop Wordsworth was not, however, satisfied with this suffragan
arrangement, although he was faithfully served by both his assistant bishops
who took their title from the county. He laboured continuously for the
subdivision of his diocese and made great pecuniary sacrifices to secure it.
In 1868 an Act was passed providing that, when an income of £3,000 a
year had been raised, bishops might be consecrated for the sees of Southwell,
Wakefield, Newcastle and Liverpool. At last on the festival of Sts. Philip
and James, 1884, Bishop Wordsworth had the satisfaction of taking part with

187 Dioc. Hist. of Lincoln, 358-9.
77

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Lichfield and other prelates in
the consecration at Westminster of George Ridding, who had been head
master of Winchester since 1868, as the first Bishop of Southwell, the county
of Derby being taken from the diocese of Lichfield to form with Nottingham-
shire the new see.

Bishop Ridding, who resided at Thurgarton Priory, died in 1904, and
was succeeded by Edwyn Hoskyns, who had been suffragan Bishop of
Burnley since 1901. In 1907 the second Bishop of Southwell entered into
residence in his cathedral city, having built a new episcopal residence.

Nottinghamshire did not produce any clergy of special note either in
the evangelical movement at the dawn of the rgth century, or in the Oxford
movement that followed in its wake; but in the aftermath of these two
great religious revivals within the church a name stands forth that will always
take a high position among the clergy of Victoria’s reign. Samuel Reynolds
Hole, curate and vicar of Caunton from 1844 to 1887, rural Dean of Southwell
1873-87, proctor in Convocation 1883-7, and Dean of Rochester from 1887
until his death in 1904, was a fine example of a high minded, genial, hard-
working parish priest, of whose memory Nottinghamshire will be always
proud.

APPENDIX

ECCLESIASTICAL DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTY

From the earliest times of which there is any definite record, the county of Nottingham formed
a single archdeaconry of that name ; and this has remained the case in the latter days of its trans-
ference to the sees of both Lincoln and Southwell.

That there were deaneries in the county at least as early as the 12th century is clear from the
names of witnesses to various charters ; but it is not until we come to the Taxation Roll of 1291-2
that we know for certain the names of the different deaneries and of the parishes included within
their limits. At this date there were four deaneries :—Nottingham, Newark, Bingham and Retford,
in addition to the peculiar jurisdiction of Southwell. This fivefold division was maintained at the
time of the Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry VIII, and remained the same until some time after the
transference of the archdeaconry to the see of Lincoln.

A subdivision of the ancient deaneries was effected during the fairly vigorous administration of
Bishop Jackson of Lincoln in 1856. Twelve rural deaneries were then formed, but the old titles
were retained, there being 1, 2 and 3 Nottingham; 1, 2 and 3 Bingham; 1 and 2 Newark;
1, 2 and 3 Retford ; and Southwell.

In 1884 on the establishment of the see of Southwell the rural deaneries were recast and
renamed, the number being reduced to eleven :—Mansfield, Nottingham, South Bingham, Bingham,
West Bingham, Collingham, Newark, Retford, Tuxford, Worksop and Southwell.

Under Bishop Hoskyns the planning and number of the deaneries has undergone further change ;
they now are :—Bawtry, Bingham, Bingham ‘South, Bingham West, Bulwell, Gedling, Mansfield,
Newark, East Newark, Norwell, Nottingham, Retford, Southwell, Tuxford, Worksop.

ECCLESIASTICAL MAP
OF

Nor TiInNGHAMSHIRE

(ARCHDEACONRY OF NOTTINGHAM IN YORK Diocese )

Showing ancient Rural Deaneries according te the Valor of 1535

and the Religious Houses.

SCALE.

12 Miles

Miles210 2 4 6 8 1

€.
RELIGIOUS HOUSES. Aawtky
oe 24.)
Benepictine Mons ae \
Blyth Piory. /
Benevictine Nuns. Vewty
2. Wallingwells Priory. fk =

Cruniac Monks.
} AWALLINGWELLS
3. Lenton Piory. 7

a
Cistercian Monks. Leoniger

4. Ruffora Abbe y. ?

aa
Carrnusian Monxs. Pa share
5.Beauvale Priory. ;
Austin Canons. 4
‘ c
6.Felley Priory. an, “NEWARK cere
; va OSSINGTON *
? Newstead FPiory. 7 t
8. Shelford Priory. \ x
9. Thurgarton Riory. ¢ N,
to Worksop Friory. I lyase ; if
P, "4 fe JURISDICTION fer Y
REMONSTRATENSIAN CANons. ,— . or SOUTHWELL Wee ana
i. Welbeck . Abbey. ge SOUTHWELL ae eine
P é \, FELLEY “ NEWARK *
REMONSTRATENSIAN Canonesses. | ‘rutincanrbN J
: ) SEAWALE “prao EBUSK’ eS
i dhol : So J
12.Broadholme FRiory ‘ SNOTTINGCHAR ney i ¢
Gisertine Canons. \ SIRT P RPE.
3. Mattersey Friory. 2 ve
ae
Kniewts Hospiraucers. ‘ piste za sop = ¢
B32. 35.34" ‘
14. Ossington Preceptory. j ne F
- CRORWELL. BISHOP /
Friars. ye ePCLIET ON: wit oo aaast e
18, Nottingham. Franciscan. 3 RUDDINGTON Suet
16g, Carmelite. c BI ‘NGHAM 5
17 Newark. Observant. ae
\ —_ -
1 fo
Ne var Vf

Correces.
18. Clifton
19. Newark.
20. Ruddin gton
2. Sibthorpe.
22. Southwe//.
23. Tuxford.
Hosprvats.
24. Bantry.
25. Blyth $f Edmund.

262-95 Stdohn the Evangelist

ee
UME’ a7 Bradebusk.

28. Lenton. S! Anthony
29. Newark. S! Leonard.
30. Nottingham. Holy Sepulchre

3). 3 Sf John the Baptist.
32. “ Sf Leonard.

33 a St Mary.

34. a Plumtree's.

35. Southwel/ S! Mary Magdalen.
36. Sfoke St Leonord.

N.B.The Farishes of Beckingham,
South Wheatley, North Leverton,
Rampton, Eaton, Dunham, and
Cropwel! were inthe Surisdiction
of Southwe//

THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES OF
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

INTRODUCTION

Almost every variety of mediaeval religious foundation was represented
within the comparatively small limits of the county of Nottingham.

Benedictine monks were found at the priory of Blyth, which, though
under the supremacy of an abbey at Rouen up to the beginning of the
15th century, was to some extent controlled by the home diocesan after a
fashion unknown in most alien priories. Benedictine nuns had a small
priory at Wallingwells. Those reformed Benedictines known as Cluniacs
and Cistercians were each represented on Nottinghamshire soil, the former
by the important priory of Lenton and the latter by the abbey of Rufford.
The stern-lived Carthusian monks had a house of some importance and of
early foundation at Beauvale.

The Black or Austin Canons had five priories, at Felley, Newstead,
Shelford, Thurgarton, and Worksop. The White or Premonstratensian
Canons had one of their largest abbeys at Welbeck, as well as one of the
only two English nunneries of the order at Broadholme. The Gilbertine
Canons were also represented in the priory of Mattersey.

The Knights Hospitallers had a preceptory at Ossington, with other
property which they had inherited from the dissolved Templars.

As to the Friars, this was one of the few counties lacking a house of
Dominicans, who had, however, settled close to Nottinghamshire at Derby,
Leicester, and Lincoln. Nottingham had settlements of Franciscan and
Carmelite Friars, whilst Newark had a small convent of Observants (reformed
Franciscans).

The colleges or collegiate churches of the county were six in number,
namely the great minster of secular canons of early foundation at Southwell,
and the five later aggregations of chantry priests, leading to some extent a
common life at Clifton, Newark, Ruddington, Sibthorpe, and Tuxford.

The hospitals or almshouses of mediaeval foundation numbered thirteen,
namely five at the county town and others at Bawtry, Blyth (2), Brade-
busk, Lenton, Newark, Southwell, and Stoke. In Nottinghamshire, as
elsewhere, the story of most of the old hospitals is a gloomy tale of the
peculation by masters or wardens of funds intended mainly by the founders
for God’s service and the relief of the sick and poor, so that the grasping of
their funds, planned by Henry VIII and carried out under Edward VI, did
but little harm. In this county, however, the exceptionally large proportion

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

of three of these hospitals, namely Bawtry, Newark, and Plumtree (Notting-
ham), survived the various storms and are now doing good work.

It will be found in the following accounts of the various religious houses
that there is an exceptional amount of interest pertaining to the history of
several of the monasteries.

Thus Blyth Priory, in addition to the difficult problems connected with
its rule under the clashing authority of the Norman abbot and the Arch-
bishop of York, is of interest through its influence upon the trade of
Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire by reason of the tolls that it was empowered
to impose on all merchandise passing through the place by road or water.

The great semi-foreign Cluniac priory of Lenton entirely overshadowed
the county town in matters spiritual, in the same way that the priory of
St. Andrew of the same order overshadowed Northampton.

The story of the Premonstratensian abbey of Welbeck, on the verge of
the great forest district of Sherwood, includes various picturesque incidents,
such as the attack on those in charge of the assize rolls of the king’s justices,
when being conveyed over bad roads from York to Nottingham, or the insis-
tence of the visitor of 1456 on being met at Papplewick, many miles south of
the abbey, lest he should lose his way in the forest. | Welbeck, too, as is but
seldom remembered, was exalted in 1512 by the joint action of both pope
and king into the supreme place over all the houses of White Canons in
England and Wales, who were no longer to be in any way subject to the
great mother house of Prémontré.

The special position and privileges of such houses as the Austin priory
of Newstead and the Cistercian abbey of Rufford, in the centre of Sherwood
Forest, have already been discussed to some small extent.’

Various visitations of the Nottinghamshire religious houses subject to
diocesan control, as well as those made by special visitors of exempt orders,
such as those of Cluni and Prémontré, are set forth in the following accounts
of particular monasteries. Nothing that tells of evil or careless living is
shirked ; but the smallness of the number of grave charges, as compared
with the numbers of the inmates, and the frequency of visitations wherein
no laxity was discovered, compel every honourable and competent judge to
come to a distinctly favourable conclusion as to the life and work of the great
majority of the ‘religious’ who dwelt in the monasteries of Nottinghamshire,
as well as to the determination on the part of those in authority to deal sternly
with careless or criminal living.

Nor should it be forgotten that every order, whether under diocesan
control or not, had its own system of visitation. This comes to light in
Nottinghamshire in connexion with the order of Austin Canons and Newstead
Priory.

As to the Comperta, or abbreviated charges of Legh and Layton, Crom-
well’s notorious visitors of 1536, their outrageous accusations against the
religious of this county are instantly confuted by a study of the subsequent
pension lists. For instance, the charges against Abbot Doncaster of Rufford
were perfectly appalling, and yet within a few months of this report being
tendered the abbot received a pension of £25, which was, however, almost
immediately voided by his appointment by the Crown to the rectory of

1 V.C.H. Notts. i, 373.
80

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Rotherham. Again, in the cases of the abbey of Welbeck and the priory of
Worksop the visitors singled out four in each house as guilty of vile offences,
and yet seven of these were pensioned and the eighth retained in a vicarage !
If the Comperta were true, the action of the granters of pensions and preferments
was worse than that of the accused.

As to the pensions, they seem as a rule to have been granted to
the superiors only of the smaller religious houses which were dissolved in
1536-7. Thus the Prior of Blyth was the only one of that house who
obtained any pension, and the like was the case with the Prioress of Broad-
holme. The Act of 1536, which was supposed to extinguish all those that
had a less income than {200 a year, was made an engine in over fifty cases
throughout England and Wales for the exacting of all that was possible
out of the monasteries by encouraging the smaller houses to contract out
of its provisions by big fines; for the Crown agents must have been well
aware that all were really doomed. In three Nottinghamshire instances
this policy was successfully achieved. Newstead paid to the Crown
£233 65. 8d., Beauvale £166 135. 4d, and Wallingwells £66 135. 4d.
for this short-lived exemption from destruction.

Many members of the suppressed religious communities throughout
England received no pensions, and such was certainly the case in Notting-
hamshire. Moreover, when once a pension was granted, the amounts were
subject to deductions on account of all subsidies granted to the king by
Parliament. A tenth part was withheld for that cause in the first year after
the general dissolution. Two years later a fourth part was abstracted from
the pensions of ‘all the late religious persons having {20 and upwards,’ and
when the half-year was due, on 25 March 1543, the religious only received
one quarter of the annual payment.’

There was also a definite reduction of 4d. on each quarterly payment
made by the officials of the Augmentation Office in London, or by the royal
receivers of monastic properties appointed in different parts of the county.
The expense, too, of journeys to obtain the money, either personally or by
attorney, was considerable.

By the time that Edward VI came to the throne a great scandal in
connexion with not a few of these pensions became apparent. Pressing
necessity, or the cajoling of unprincipled speculators, had caused various of
the disbanded religious to part with their pension, securing patents or
certificates for small sums of ready money, ‘supplanting them to their utter
undoing.’ To stop this evil an Act was passed in 3 Edward VI ‘against the
crafty and deceitful buying of pensions from the late monasteries.’* By
this Act it was provided that all who had bought pension patents were to
restore them within six months. The same statute, to check the notorious
arrears, ordered all officials and receivers to pay all pensions on demand under
a penalty of £5; and if they demanded more than the legal fee they were to
forfeit ten times the amount taken.

To secure the due working of this Act and to check further pension
scandals, commissions of inquiry were eventually appointed for each county.
The majority of the reports of these commissioners are extant at the Public

? Harl. MS. 604, fol. 108.
> Act 2 & 3 Edw. VI, cap. 7.

2 81 II

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Record Office, but have been very rarely consulted.* The following is an
abstract of the Nottinghamshire report as far as it affected those driven out of
the monasteries.

Sir John Markham and William Meringe, Anthony Foster and Wil-
liam Bolles, esqs., were appointed in 1551 commissioners for Nottingham-
shire, ‘for the diligent inquisition of pensionaries, stipendiarie priests and
others.’®

They met at Newark on 26 October. With regard to Thurgarton
Priory they reported of Thomas Dethick, the penultimate prior, entitled to
£30 a year, that ‘of him we can her nothinge.’ One of the canons, Robert
Cant, to whom had been assigned a pension of £5, appeared and stated on
oath that he had sold his patent to Richard and William Hopkin for
£13 6s. 8d. on 18 June 1547; Richard Hopkin produced the patent, stating
he was unpaid for a whole year. Richard Hopkin, late canon, himself held
a pension of £6 13s. 4d. ; he produced the patent, and was a year in arrears.
Henry Gascoigne, late canon, entitled to {5 a year, appeared half a year in
arrear. Of John Chapnaye, George Dawkin, John Robert, Humphrey
Dethick, Robert Warrington, John Ayleworth, and John Biron, pensioners
from £5 down to 4os., the commissioners could hear nothing.

As to Worksop, the late prior, Thomas Stokes, produced his patent
entitling him to £50 a year ; his pension was half a year in arrear. Robert
Starkbone (£5 65. 8d.) sold his patent, 21 April 1548, to John Castlin,
bailiff of Worksop, for £10 135. 4d.; and on 12 January 1551 the bailiff resold
his bargain to William Bolles for £34; Bolles produced the patent, which was
in arrear two years. James Windebanke (£4) sold his patent to Peter
Tailor of Tuxford for £12 in 1542; George Oxlaye (£6), William Meth
(£6), Alexander Bothe (£5 6s. 8¢.), Edward Robinson (£5 6s. 8d.), Thomas
Bedale (£5 6s. 8¢.), Christopher Hasleyne (40s.), Richard Ashelaye (£6), and
George Barnsley (£5 6s. 8¢.), appeared and produced their patents, all of
which were in arrear. Thomas Richardson (£5 6s. 8d.) had died in 1551,
whilst of Richard Hernested (£4) the commissioners could hear nothing.
Several others are named under pensions, holding patents for small sums, but
they are more correctly lay annuitants.

The prior and four canons of Newstead produced their patents; of the
remainder the report is ‘we can here nothinge.’ Of George Dalton, late
Prior of Blyth, the single pensioner of that convent, nothing was known.
The prior and five out of the eight pensioned monks of Beauvale showed
their patents ; the other three appear to have died or their whereabouts were
not known.

Joan Angevin, late Prioress of Broadholme, the solitary pensioner of that
house (£4 135. 4d.), ‘appered by here attournaye Charles Angevin who
beeinge swarne and examened shewed unto us her pattent unsold and saithe
she is alive and is unpaid for 1) yeyres at Michelmas A° E. sexti septo the
cause whye it was not payd the first yeyr none did require it of the

“The whole report for Derbyshire was printed in extenso by Dr. Cox in vol. xxviii of the Derb. Arch.
Soc. Fourn. (1906).

§ Exch. Accts. K.R. bdle. 76, no. 19. It is strange that William Bolles, a receiver of the Court of
Augmentation, and himself a bad offender in the purchase of pension-patents, &c., should have been appointed
one of this commission. As to his conduct in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire see Derb. Arch. Soc. Fourn.
xxvilil, 15-16.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Recayver and the second yeyr ye Recayver said he had a restraine to the
contrarie.’

Of the pensioned Abbot of Welbeck and three of his monks, the
commissioners could hear nothing. Four of the monks appeared and showed
their patents ; all were in arrear for a year, James Cassey had (accidentally)
burnt his patent. In the case of Thomas Holme (£2 135. 4d.), Henry
Bentley, the attorney of Brian Bailes, of Wakefield, showed the patent, which
Holme had sold to William Drake, vicar of Market Rasen, for £10 in
January 1540, ‘which Drake solde his interest to Richard Pimond for
£13 6s. 8d. whiche Pimond is dead, so yt ye said Brian Bailes hathe maried
the said Pimond his wife and hathe the sayd pattent in the right of his wif
unsold and is unpaid for one hole yeyr at Michaelmas A® xxxviij H. viii,
and for one yeyr at Michaelmas A® E. sexti sexto for he colde not recayve it
at the Recavyer his handes.’

Thomas Norman, late Prior of Mattersey, appeared through attorney
and showed his patent. Margaret Goldsmith, late prioress of Wallingwells,
appeared personally, producing her patent ; Agnes Fines (40s.) of the same
convent appeared by deputy, but of Alice Coventry and Ellen Pye (each
40s.) the commissioners could hear nothing.

When the return of pensions, &c., was made in 2 & 3 Philip and Mary
it was found in addition to annuities and corrodies that the number of the
ejected religious of Nottinghamshire to whom pensions were then being paid
amounted to fifty-one—namely five canons of Thurgarton ; fourteen canons
of Worksop ; the prior and six canons of Newstead; the prior and seven
monks of Beauvale ; the prioress of Broadholme ; seven canons of Welbeck ;
the prior and four canons of Mattersey ; and the prioress and three nuns of

Wallingwells.®

HOUSE OF BENEDICTINE MONKS

1. THE PRIORY OF BLYTH The foundation charter of the priory states that
Roger, in conjunction with his wife Muriel, for the
The priory of Blyth was founded for Benedic- _ stability of William the king and thesoulof Matilda
tine monks in the year 1088 by Roger de Builli, the queen, and for the health of the donors’ souls,
the first Norman lord of the honour of Tick- gave to God and St. Mary of Blyth, and to the
hill, who crossed the seas with the Conqueror. monks there serving God, the church and all the
Roger de Builli became the largest landed pro- township of Blyth, with every kind of appurte-
prietor in Nottinghamshire, owning the greater nance; toll and passage from Radford to the
part of the north of the county, as well as a large Thorne? and from ‘ Frodestan’® to the Idle ; a
number of neighbouring manors in the counties fair, and full manorial rights, including gallows
of York and Derby.’ He derived hisname from and market at Blyth; the vill of Elton, also
Builli or Busli, near Rouen, and hence it is not Beighton (Derbyshire), and land in Barnby
surprising that he so ordered his foundation at (Moor); together with the tithes of a great
Blyth that it was but an alien priory, the appoint- number of his demesne lands in various manors..
ment of whose prior was vested in the abbot The charter concludes by setting out that these
of the Holy Trinity of Rouen, to which abbey benefactions were made for the purpose of build-
Roger had granted the tithes of Builli about ing the priory, and for the food and clothing of
1060.* the monks who there served God and His.
Mother, saving that there was yearly to be given:

§ Add. MS. 8102.

1 Raine, Hist. of Blyth (1860), 12-16. * That is, along the high road to the north betweem
7 Round, Cal. of Doc. France, no. 83; V.C.H. Notts. the Rivers Ryton and Thorne.
i, 223. 3 Frodestan has not been identified.

to the church of Holy Trinity, Rouen, 40s, of
English money.‘

Confirmation charters of Kings Henry II,
John, and Edward I, together with other bene-
factions, are cited from the chartulary in the
Monasticon.®

Roger the founder died in 1098; he left a
son who died without issue in 1102, and was
succeeded by his brother Arnold, who was one
of the witnesses of the foundation charter.
Arnold’s son John, weary of the world, entered
his uncle’s priory as a monk, giving at the same
time a gift of land. On the day of his burial
Richard, his eldest son, laid his father’s grant
upon the altar, and confirmed it by attaching his
own seal.®

This Richard de Builli was one of the joint
founders of the neighbouring Yorkshire Abbey
of Roche. John de Builli his son built the two
chapels or churches of Bawtry and Austerfield
in Blyth parish, giving them to the monks of the
priory. Idonea his daughter, who married, in the
reign of John, Robert de Vipont, a great lord in
Westmorland, confirmed this gift in the time
of her widowhood. She died in 1235, and with
her ended the family of de Builli.”

It may be noted here that the cathedral
church of St. Mary of Rouen became possessed,
in the course of the 12th century, of an interest
in the neighbourhood of Blyth, which at first
sight seems inconsistent with the dependence of
the priory upon the abbey of the Holy Trinity.
In 1174 Henry II granted to his clerk Walter
of Coutances ‘the chapelry of Blyth’ with its
appurtenances. After Henry’s death his son
John, as Count of Mortain, confirmed this gift
to the cathedral church of Rouen and to Walter
of Coutances, then archbishop of that see.® In
an original charter issued by Count John between
1191 and 1193, the ‘chapelry of Blyth’ is
defined as ‘the church of Harworth with the
chapels of Serlby and Martin.’™ It is clear that
this grant was never intended to convey any
rights over the priory of Blyth, and the history
of the churches comprised within the chapelry is
well ascertained, and is quite distinct from that
of the priory.

In the time of Henry III and Edward I
this priory is several times referred to as sub-

4 Harl. MS. 3759, fol. 48. Harleian MS. 3759 is
a well-written and well-preserved register or chartulary
with rubricated headings, of 153 parchment folios, in
various hands, most of the end of the 13th and begin-
ning of the 14th century. The first part chiefly
consists of a series of rentals and lists of tenants of the
reign of Edward I. At folio 48 begins the chartulary
proper, which extends nearly to the end of the book ;
it contains copies of abstracts of about 375 charters.

5 Dugdale, Mon. iv, 623-5.

6 Harl. MS. 3759, fol. 105.

7 Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 17.

® Cal. of Doc. France, n0. 39, 46.

§ Ibid. no. 61.

HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

ject to the abbey of St. Katharine of Rouen,
and occasionally at that period and later to the
Abbot of Holy Trinity, Rouen. These two
titles refer to one and the same place. This
Benedictine abbey, on a hill-side near Rouen,
was originally dedicated in honour of the Holy
Trinity, being consecrated by the Archbishop of
Rouen in 1130. At a later date, early in the
13th century, the religious of St. Katharine
were transferred here by Simon, monk of Mount
Sinai, and hence the abbey was more frequently
known as St. Katharine of the Mount.°

The alien priories are generally divided into
two kinds, dative or conventual. The majority
were of the former style, and mostly quite small
houses whose priors and monks were removable
at will by the superior and convent of the foreign
house to whom they owed allegiance, and for
whom they chiefly acted as stewards of their
English possessions. “The second or conven-
tual class acknowledged the supremacy of the
mother house, paying an annual apport or
tribute, but possessing their own English property
and usually electing their own superior. Under
this latter head came the Cluniac monks of Eng-
land, and to some extent the Cistercian monks
and the Premonstratensian canons. Blyth occu-
pied an intermediate position between the two, as
will be seen from the following extracts from
the archiepiscopal registers at York. Various arch-
bishops successfully maintained certain powers
which were but rarely exercised by diocesans
over alien houses; but at the same time the
Abbot of Rouen claimed the right to remove
both the prior and any member of his flock at
pleasure.

This claim of the Abbot of Holy Trinity was,
however, contested at an early date. Pope
Lucius in the 12th century issued a bull to the
Prior of Blyth, strictly forbidding anyone from
removing him from his office or appropriating
the possessions of his church.”

Again, Archbishop Godfrey in 1260 issued a
peremptory mandate to Theobald, Prior of Blyth,
who had been recalled by his abbot to Rouen,
forbidding him under pain of excommunication
to cross the seas without his (the archbishop’s)
permission, for Theobald had been instituted
as perpetual prior by the archbishop’s pre-
decessor.”

Blyth was situated on an important early high
road, which led from Newark through East
Retford to Rotherham and the further north.
In 1249 Archbishop Gray assigned to Blyth an
annual pension of 5 marks out of the church
of Weston, stating that he was moved to grant
this in order to assist the prior and convent in

° Migne, Dict. des Abbayes, 156

10 Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 46. It is not known
whether this was Lucius II (1144-5) or Lucius III
(1181-5), but probably the former.

" Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 1444.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

their laudable and heavy work of providing hos-
pitality for wayfarers and guests.”

In December 1270 a grant was made to the
priory of Blyth by Archbishop Giffard of the
toll of his town of Scrooby.'8

Earlier in the same year the archbishop sent
his mandate to the Dean of Retford to warn the
convent of Blyth to pay the tithes due to the
abbot and convent of Vaudey, or to appear at
his court."

An agreement was entered into in 1276
between the convent of Blyth and Sir William
de Cressy as to a long dispute that had been
waged in the York court and in various civil
courts as to certain tithes and oblations. Through
the mediation of Archbishop Giffard, it was
covenanted that Sir William would neither by
himself nor others molest or hinder the priory
in the collection of tithes (in kind), or in the
carriage of them through field, park, meadow, or
elsewhere, wherever they had been in the habit
of gathering or carrying them without damage
to Sir William. Sir William de Cressy also
undertook for the future to see that all his
tenants, both free and serf, made all their obla-
tions at the church of Blyth, as well for the dead
as for purifications and other customary offerings ;
and further to restore to the church if possible
any dues of which they had been deprived during
the controversy. Both parties agreed to with-
draw from any litigations then in progress, save
in the matter then before the king’s court con-
cerning the right of Sir William de Cressy to
raise gallows in the hay of ‘ Emmeslouwe.’ ¥

A list of the rents paid to the priory of Blyth
for the year 1273 is fully set forth in the chartu-
lary ; they amounted to £24 9s. 344."

In the Hundred Rolls of Nottinghamshire in
1276 the jury of Retford complained that the
prior and his bailiffs took 4d. toll for every sack
of wool passing through Blyth, whereas they
used only to demand 2d. for every cart-load, and
so with regard to other merchandise, to the great
injury of the merchants. But from the Quo
Warranto returns of about the same date we
find that the prior’s attorney sets forth with
minuteness the tolls claimed and the boundaries
within which they were levied from time imme-
morial and by chartered right. ‘The western
boundary extended from Radford to Shireoaks, and
thence to ‘ Austan’ and ‘Frodestan’; the northern
from ‘ Frodestan’ to Laughton, and thence suc-
cessively to Field, Malpas, Rossington, and the
Thorne ; the eastern from the Thorne to Bawtry,
Scrooby, Mattersey, Sutton, West Retford, and
the Idle; and the southern from the Idle to
Ordsall, Twyford Bridge, Normanton by Bot-

” York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 105-6.
13 Tbid. Giffard, fol. 75 d.

™ Thid. fol. 105 d.

% Tbid. fol. 127.

hamsall and Radford. Within these limits the
convent levied tolls on every cart-load of timber
or bread (for sale), 4d.; for every cart-load of
any other article for sale, 2d. ; for every horse-load
of salmon, 1d. ; for every horse-load of any other
article, 4d. ; for every back-load or pack of mer-
chandise, }d. ; for every horse or cow (for sale),
3d. ; for every sheep and pig (for sale), 4d. ; and
for every sack of wool packed and sold at Blyth,
4d. All these tolls and boundaries were held to
be established.”

At a somewhat later date the citizens of
Lincoln claimed their own chartered privileges.
‘They took proceedings in the Exchequer against
the priory for having levied tolls on them ; but
a compromise was arrived at whereby the con-
vent ceded all future demands on condition of
the citizens waiving all claim to damages for
past demands.'®

A remarkable entry on the Hundred Rolls
must not be overlooked. Peter de Parkes, the
steward of Tickhill Honour, took a cutpurse,
caught by the Blyth bailiffs in that market, out
of their hands and conveyed him to Tickhill.
The prior claimed that the thief should be tried
in his court, and the Tickhill bailiffs consented to
surrender him on payment of 5s.; on the prior’s
refusal to pay, the culprit was immediately hanged
at Tickhill.’

The Taxation Roll of 1291 enters the tem-
poralities of the priory in Nottinghamshire as
producing an income of £43 15s. 10d., with the
addition of 6s. 8d. in the Yarburgh deanery of
Lincoln. The spiritualities included £50 for
the rectory of Blyth (the vicarage was worth
£10), and portions of the churches of Weston,
Bingham, Elton, and Wheatley, £9 6s. 84.7

An inquisition of 1379, made at Nottingham
before one of the barons of the Exchequer and
the county escheator, declared the total average
income of the alien priory of Blyth to be
£140 35. 4d. The church of Blyth was valued
at £66 13s. 4d.; the toll, markets, pleas, and
perquisites of market and other courts, £62 6s. 84.;
and one hundred and twenty days’ work in har-
vest from customary tenants in gathering the
prior’s crops, 20s. “The remainder was made up
of a pension of £3 6s. 8d. from the church of
Weston, and a variety of small accounts for lands
and rents in different parishes of the county.”

A highly interesting return was at the same
time made as to the exact state of the priory’s
revenue and outgoings, with a view of enabling
the Crown to determine at what rent this con-
vent, with other alien priories, should be permitted

Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 26, 27, 29, 302, 304,
317-19 ; Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 616, 627.

8 Harl. MS. 3759, fol. 132.

18 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 303.

” Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 654, 74, 310, 311,

311d, 312, 314, 3384, 339.
1 Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 42-3.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

to hold its estates. The jury stated that there
was in the priory a foreign monk, the late
prior, who had resigned through old age and
infirmities, but was allowed for meat and drink
as much as two monks, amounting to £12 175. 9d.
a year. He wasalso granted for fire and candle and
other necessaries and for a servant’s allowance a
further sum of £2 6s. 8d. Two chaplains serv-
ing the church, with table and clothing, £8;
a clerk for the church, with food and clothing,
20s.; the vicar (besides his vicarage dues), in
money and a quarter of wheat (worth 4s.) with
places for himself and chaplain at the prior’s
table at twenty-four festivals in the year valued
at 12s., what is estimated to be worth {1 16s.
a year ; a clerk serving the prior and his house,
including the value of table and a_ robe,
£3 165. 8d.; a steward and his clerk £4, and
a serjeant at arms 13s. 4d. There were nine
secular persons in receipt of corrodies, worth
about £2 135. 4d. each.? Other servants in-
cluded a cook for the prior and guests, whose
board and wages came to £2 10s. ; a baker with
servant, £5 145. 3d.; a butler, £2 105.; and a
servant who attended the prior on his business
on horseback, £1 35. 4d. The yearly expenses
of hospitality were estimated at {10. A yearly
sum of £27 10s. was expended in the sustenta-
tion of the prior, his servants, horses, and other
necessaries, in addition to a sum of £16 for his
expenses in travelling to and from London and
other places on the priory’s business. The
repairs of the chancel of Blyth Church with the
books, ornaments, &c., of the building of the
priory and its granges, and of Blyth Bridge (in
return for tolls), averaged £17 a year.

The jury finally declared that the surplus
income of Blyth Priory after paying all the above-
cited and other small charges only amounted to
46s. 64d. It will be noted, too, that nothing
is entered in these accounts for the sustenance
of the monks ; they would be in the main sup-
ported from the farms of the estate.

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 shows areduc-
tion in the value of the priory ; it had been much
harassed during the various times that it was in
the hands of the Crown as an alien priory during
the wars with France. The gross annual income
was set down as £126 8s. 24d., and the clear
value as £113 os. 84d. The total of the tem-
poralities in the county of Nottingham, from the
demesne lands and rents, lands and tenements at
Blyth, Elton, Barnby, Elkesley, and Styrrup
(Nottinghamshire), Beighton (Derbyshire), and
Firbeck and Billingley in Yorkshire, were valued at
£65 14s. 64d. The rest of the income came
chiefly from the rectory of Blyth (£47 175),
and from pensions from the Nottinghamshire

2 These corrodies were usually sustenance for life
granted to old persons who gave large gifts to the
convent or made overall of which they were possessed.

3 Add. MS. 6164, fol. 393-4.

churches of Marnham, Grassthorpe, Elton, and
Weston, from the Yorkshire churches of Bil-
lingley and Laughton in le Morthen, and from
the Lincolnshire priories of Thornham and
Elsham. Among the deductions was £3 65. 8d.
distributed in alms yearly in memory of the
founder.*4

A composition was entered into before the
archbishop in 1287, between the Prior and con-
vent of Blyth and William the perpetual vicar
of Blyth concerning the tithes of a certain place
called Wetcroft in the township of Blyth, and
of two outlying members of the manor of Hod-
sock called Hillertrewong and Le Comynger, the
tithes of which three places were worth 16s. a
year, and also concerning a certain close called
Stubbing valued at 2s. a year, and a place called
Northewaye worth 245. a year. These tithes
had long been the subject of contentions, but for
the sake of peace it was agreed that the vicar
would waive all claim to them, on condition that
the vicar of Blyth and his successors, together
with his parochial chaplains for the time being,
were to have the right of taking their places,
suitably vested, in quire with the convent on
twenty-four solemn days of the year. The
vicar and his successors were also to receive from
the convent a quarter of rye at Michaelmas and
pasturage for four cows wherever the convent
cows might be pasturing. At the same time the
prior and convent gave their unanimous and
willing consent to the following ordination for
the vicarage—the tithes of hay, lambs, and wool
in the township of Blyth, except in Northway ;
the oblations and blessed bread in the parish
church and chapel ; all incomings of the chapel-
ries of Bawtry and Austerfield, except the tithes
of grain and the mortuaries ; and the offerings at
marriages and purifications throughout the whole
parish. They excepted, however, from the
vicar’s portion the offerings on the five principal
feasts, namely Easter, the Assumption, All
Saints, Christmas, and Purification, and the offer-
ing that might be made at the altars of the
monastery within the cloister on the days of the
saints in whose honour they were dedicated, and
the mass pence offered to the canons out of
devotion.

It was further determined that the vicar was
to receive the bread called ‘ Maynport’ throughout
the whole parish, the wax cess and the offerings
made at the baptism of children, with their
chrysoms. Also the tithes of young pigs, goslings,
calves, dovecotes, orchards, and of corn and hay
in closes, save of the places already named. Also
tithes of markets and of flax and hemp and all
minute tithes. [he vicar was to have the use
of the manse which had been customarily assigned
him. He was to serve the church of Blyth
personally, and to find and support another fit
assistant priest, as well as two other fit priests to

™ Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 176, 177.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

serve the chapels of Bawtry and Austerfield.
The vicar was further to provide the prior yearly,
within eight days before Easter, with a robe worth
20s. or with 20s. in money.”

Blyth Priory was personally visited by Arch-
bishop Wickwane in 1280, with the result that
on 28 June the following corrections were
forwarded to the house, prefaced by the statement
that although the reformation of the religious
belonged to the diocesan, he was willing to approve
of the statutes of the Abbot of St. Katharine’s,
Rouen. The general rule of St. Benedict was,
however, also to be followed ; silence was to be
kept at the usual times and in the usual places ;
no drinkings after compline ; only the genuinely
sick to be accommodated in the farmery ; food and
drink not to be thrown away, but reserved for
the poor ; no money to be received for furs or
clothing; the prior to direct his own household
more sternly ; small gifts and money offered at
mass to go to the common fund ; the carols and
chests of the monks to be opened twice a year ;
the prior always to be present in dorter, frater,
quire, chapter, and collations ; the church, houses,
and defences of the monastery to be repaired in
the roofs and whenever necessary.”

Archbishop Romayne held a visitation of Blyth
Priory in their chapter-house on 20 December
1286. On the following day he sent his man-
date to the prior and convent stating that at his
recent visitation he had found Thomas Russel,
one of their monks, so intolerable in his conduct
that, for his own good and that of their house,
he ordered that he should be sent back to the
chief abbey of their order, whence he came, there
to do penance ; the journey was to be undertaken
on that side of the Epiphany.”

The conduct of this monk must have been
singularly bad to evoke so immediate a mandate.
The archbishop, having relieved his mind as to
this bad blot on the fair fame of the priory, took
a considerable time before he forwarded any
general injunctions consequent on his visitation.
It was not indeed until almost a twelvemonth
after his visit, namely on 6 December 1287,
that his rulings were sent out to the priory.
The decrees of former archbishops were to be
observed ; approval was given to the injunctions
of the Abbot of Holy Trinity, Rouen, which were
to be read in chapter oncea month ; the convent
was to obey the prior reverently, without murmur
or reluctance, and the prior was to treat the
convent with kindly consideration ; the prior was
to take yearly a faithful inventory of the goods
of the monastery and to render an account twice
in the year ; the custom of feeding in the miseri-
corde, where flesh was permissible, instead of in
the frater was condemned, but it was allowed
that whilst two parts of the convent dined in the

* Harl. MS. 3759, fol. 6, 7.
*° York Epis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 7.
7’ Ibid. Romanus, fol. 70d.

frater, the third part, according to the disposition
of the president, might have the solace of dining
in the chamber termed misericorde ; enjoined
penances were always to be performed for the
cleansing of the soul.”8

In July 1289 the archbishop had occasion to
write a kindly letter to the Abbot of St. Katharine
(Holy Trinity), Rouen, on behalf of John Belle-
ville, a monk of Blyth, of good conversation
according to the testimony of prior and convent,
and asking that he might be allowed to return
to Rouen, as he was suffering from the climate,
which did not agree with him.”

Subsequent letters from the archbishop to the
abbot, as entered in the former’s register, were
of a different character, In April 1291 he
ordered the French abbot not to keep his monks
at Blyth for more than four or five years.
From the wording of this Jetter it is clear that
the monks of Blyth for the most part regarded
their sojourn there as a kind of banishment, and
looked forward with eagerness to the prospect of
a return to their native land.*° Four months
later the archbishop wrote, sending back to
Rouen Robert de Aungerville, one of the monks,
for unruly conduct, and besought the abbot to
send no more monks to Blyth of that character.
In the following February, John de Belleville
(the same monk whose removal had formerly
been sought on the score of ill health) was sent
back to Rouen by the archbishop on account of
intolerable conduct, and as the cause of quarrels
and discords. In terms of some dignity and
severity, the archbishop repeated his request that
only well-behaved monks should be sent to Blyth
in the future.*!

In April 1291 the archbishop again wrote to
the abbot, but on this occasion in quite a different
strain , for it was a letter of protest against the
recall to Rouen of Nicholas de Bretteville, as he
was of inestimable value to the priory of Blyth.
It would almost seem as if the abbot was deter-
mined to pay out the archbishop for sending
back evilly disposed monks, by recalling those
who were most essential to good order, for in the
following October the archbishop wrote yet
another letter entreating him not to recall the
prior, whom his diocesan described as his dear son,
whose probity and religious and honourable life
he had noted, nor Nicholas de Bretteville, both of
whom were so necessary to the good government
of the priory. The archbishop pressed this all
the more, as he was going to the Roman court.”

Archbishop Greenfield wrote to the Abbot of
St. Katharine’s in 1310 asking that his convent
would nominate some fit person to be prior of
Blyth between that date and Michaelmas, for he
found that the prior was very old and weak.
The archbishop commended two of the monks

8 Ibid. fol. 72. * Thid. fol. 75.
Ibid. fol. 77. 5 Thid. fol. 77 d.
3 Ibid. fol. 78.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

of the best repute to him, namely Ralph de la
Campayne the sub-prior and Laurence Sennale.®3

Nicholas de Bretteville resigned his office as
prior on St. Bartholomew’s Day 1310, and the
archbishop admitted Robert Clyvill, a monk from
Rouen, as prior. Provision was made for the
old prior during his life.*4

On the death of Prior Nicholas English in
1409, the king claimed the presentation in con-
sequence of the war with France, and William
Ouston was instituted in succession.*® Prior
John Halum died in 1420, and on 30 October
Robert Clifforth was elected in his place. But
the king claimed to be the true patron, and soon
afterwards presented John Gaynesbury to the
priory ; he was admitted on 5 May 1421.*° King
Henry VI again presented on 23 November
1431; the new prior was John Cotyngham, a
monk of St. Mary’s Abbey, York.*”

There was a royal presentation in 1465, when
another monk of St. Mary’s York, Robert
Scotis, was instituted prior.3® Edward IV in
1472 presented William Massam, a monk of
Durham, to whom his own house were greatly
attached ; he was granted the privilege of wear-
ing the Durham frock, like any other brother of
the house, whenever he came on a_ visit.%®
Henry VII presented in 1496 and again in 1507,
when Thomas Gardiner, a monk of Westminster,
was made prior ; on this last occasion the presen-
tation is entered in the register as having been
made by the king as Duke of Lancaster.“© The
institution of the last prior in 1534 is also regis-
tered as being done under the seal of the Duchy
cf Lancaster.‘

The special commissioners of 1536, Legh and
Layton, visited this priory and affected to have
found four monks guilty of disgraceful offences
and one of adultery. They declared the annual
value to be £180.”

On 25 March 1536 Prior Dalton wrote to
Cromwell saying that he was visited with sickness
and could not go up to show Cromwell his
muniments, regal and papal, in accordance with
his injunctions, but he was forwarding him all
the evidence concerning royal grants and the
Bishop of Frome’s confirmations.** The modest
pension of 20 marks was granted to George
Dalton, the dispossessed prior, on 2 July 1536.

Sir Gervase Clyfton obtained a grant from the
Crown of the site of the monastery, together with
Blyth rectory, on 10 July 15 33.3

8 Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 1453.
3 Ibid. 6972, fol. 18.
35 Ibid. fol. 24d.

57 Thid. fol. 284.

38 Ibid. fol. 344. 39 Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 51-2.
Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 43.

‘\ Tbid. fol. 47. “1. and P. Hen, VIII, x, 364.
“ Tbid. 550.

“Aug. Off. Bks. ccix, fol 1114,

3° Ibid. 6969, fol. 119.

There is an imperfect impression of the seal
of this priory at the British Museum, attached
to a charter of 1420. The Virgin is seated on
a carved throne, with the Holy Child in her lap,
lifting up His right hand in benediction, and
having a flower in the left. The legend is
wanting ; the matrix was of 13th-century
date.*®

Priors oF BLYTH

R. de Pauliaco, 1188 *

William Wastell, 12— %”

Gilbert, occurs 1224 8

Theobald, occurs 1260 ®

William Burdon, 1273, resigned 1303 ©
Nicholas de Bretteville, elected 1303 *!
Robert de Clyvill, 1310”

Ralph de Toto, 1328 °°

Peter Meslier, resigned 1344 “4

Peter Textor, 1344

Gilbert, occurs 1365 *

Thomas de Vymond, resigned 1376”
Nicholas English, 1376 ®

William Ouston, 1409 °°

John Halum, died 1420"

Robert Clifforth, 1420 %

John Gaynesbury, 1421 ®

Robert Toppeclyff, 1429 ®

John Cotyngham, 1431 “

Nicholas Halle, 1438 ©

Thomas Bolton, 1448 ©

William West, 1451-8 ”

Robert Bubwith, 1458 ©

Robert Scotis, 1465 ®

William Massam, died 1472

Robert Gwyllam, 1496”

Thomas Gardiner, 1507”

John Baynebrig, 1511 7

George Dalton, 1534

6 Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 50.

“ Thid. “’ Harl. MS. 3759, fol. 123.
’ Ibid. 6970, fol. 1446.

5 bid. fol. 100d.

51 Thid. ° Ibid. 6972, fol. 23.
53 Ibid. * Ibid. fol. 24.

5 Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 51.

57 Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 63.

5 Tbid.

58 Ibid. * Ibid. 6972, fol. 24d.
© Ibid. 6969, fol. 119.

1 9
*! Tbid. * bid.

® Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 51.
@ Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 28.
§ Pat. 17 Hen. VI.

® Pat. 26 Hen. VI, pt. i.
* Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 27.
Tbid. fol. 30. Tbid. fol. 345.
” Raine, Hist. of Bhyth, 51.
" Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 39.
? Thid. fol. 43.

® Tbid. fol. 44.

™ Ibid. fol. 47.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

HOUSE OF BENEDICTINE NUNS

2. THE PRIORY OF WALLING-
WELLS

Ralph de Chevrolcourt (or Caprecuria) in the
time of Stephen granted, with the consent of
his heirs, to Almighty God and the Blessed
Virgin a place in his park of Carlton in Lindrick
by the Wells (juxta fontes et rivum fontium),
whose name was to be St. Mary of the Park, to
make and build there a dwelling for religious,
independent of any other house, in honour of
the Blessed Virgin, for the remission of his sins
and for the good estate and the soul’s health of
himself and his heirs and progenitors and of all
who should help and maintain the house. By
way of endowment the founder granted the
house, the water for mill use, pasture in the
park for all their beasts, pannage in the same
for ninety swine, a right of way through the
midst of the park for carting their crops, all the
lands held of his fee by Gunwat, Thori, William
son of Lefwin, Rushtoch and Ernwi, with
various other small plots, common rights in the
field of Carlton, common of pasture on all his
demesnes, and the whole underwood (arbustum)
of Sicam to inclose. The charter concludes
with an unusually solemn blessing upon his heirs
who should cherish and maintain his gifts to this
house, and a malediction on all who should
attempt to disturb, diminish, or straiten the
benefactions.?

The church of Cantley, Yorkshire, was appro-
priated to the nuns of Wallingwells in 1273.
Archbishop Giffard gave his assent, on account
of their penury, in terms of warm eulogy as to
their devout life. The appropriation was to
come into operation on the death or resignation
of John Clarell, the then rector, and meanwhile
the rector was to assign to the priory the yearly
pension of a mark.”

At the end of Giffard’s register, the ordinance
of Archbishop Godfrey, in 1262, concerning cer-
tain rights of this nunnery in the churches of
Carlton in Lindrick, Cantley, and Mattersey is
cited. On account of their great poverty, the
archbishop, with the express consent of Warin de
Dyson, rector of Carlton, assigned to them the
corn tithes of eighteen bovates of land in that
parish, and the nuns were to be held clear of all
tithes, small and great, on their lands in Carlton.
Moreover the rector of Carlton was to sustain
all burdens of the church, save the extraordinary
ones of a fourth part. “The advowsons of the
rectory of Carlton (saving this fourth part) and of
the rectory of Cantley were reserved to the

1 Thoroton, Nofts. iii, 408.
7 York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 17.

2 89

Archbishop of York, but a pension was to be
paid of 20s, out of Carlton rectory and of two
marks out of Cantley rectory to the prioress and
nuns of Wallingwells. It was at the same time
agreed that the presentation to the rectory of
Mattersey was reserved to the priory.?

The Taxation Roll of 1291 enters that the
prioress held in spiritualities in Carlton in
Lindrick £10 135. 4d., and in temporalities
£4 18s. 4d.; also £2 135. 4d. in temporalities
at Handsworth Woodhouses.*

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry VIII gives
the total annual value of the house as £87 115. 6d.,
but heavy reprises reduced the clear annual
value to £58 9s. rod. The demesne lands pro-
duced £6 year, and other Nottinghamshire lands
in Carlton, Gildingwells, Gringley, ‘ Willourne,’
together with Yorkshire lands in Handsworth
and its members, brought the total of the tem-
poralities to £21 11s. 10d. Campsall rectory
(Yorks) produced the large annual income of
£51 145.3 Cantley rectory and a pension out
of Carlton rectory brought the total of the spiritu-
alities to £65 195s. 8d. The chief outgoing
was from Campsall rectory, which included
£16 135. 4d. to the vicar as his pension,
£1 6s. 8d. to the deacon of the same church,
#5 to a chantry priest in Pontefract Castle, £1
to the Archbishop of York, and tos. to the York
chapter. ‘There was also a distribution of alms
to the poor four times a year, amounting to
£2 6s. 8d., in commemoration of the founder.®

The Prioress of Wallingwells took action in
1247 against Thomas de Lyncoln and Juliana
his wife for obstructing a certain highway in
Carlton, so that she could not use it for her
carts to the granges ; but the action failed, as the
jury found that the priory never had any right of
way, and only used it on sufferance.®

In November 1295 Archbishop Romayne
appointed Lady Emma de Stocwelle prioress of
Wallingwells, and issued his mandate to the
archdeacon to induct her. A memorandum in
the register states that the diocesan appointed in
this manner because there was no exhibition of
the election in writing ; but it would appear
that Lady Emma was the choice of the nuns.’

Dame Isabel Crofte, Prioress of Wallingwells,
by indenture dated 30 June 1507 covenanted
with George Hastings to farm to him all manner
of tithes of the town and manor of Fenwick
pertaining to the priory and including tithes of

3 Ibid. fol. 145 d.

* Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.).

® Valor Eccl, (Rec. Com.), v, 179.

§ Thoroton, No/fs. ili, 410.

7 York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 85.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

corn, hay, hemp, flax, goosegrass, wool and
lambs, together with mortuaries and oblations,
and all other profits, for the term of both their
lives, at £3 a year. It was also agreed and
provided that the township of Fenwick was to
make due oblation unto the mother church
of Campsall at the four principal feasts, and
further covenanted that the inhabitants ‘shall
well and trulye content and paye the Lenton
bokes and the profetts thereof unto the saide
Dame Isabell prioresse, or ellus unto hir deputs.’ ®

This small nunnery was visited in 1536 by
Legh and Layton. Wonderful to relate, they
had no slander nor scandal to report of this
house, whose annual value they returned at £60.
Under the head of Superstitio they recorded the
comb of St. Edmund, and an image of the
Virgin said to have been discovered at the found-
ing of the house.®

In April of this year Sir John Nevill, in a
letter to Cromwell, wrote:—‘I beseech you
have me in remembrance for Wallyng Wellys,
as I wrote to Mr. Richard, your nephew or for
something else.’ !°

Wallingwells, however, though so small a
house, was one of those religious foundations
which managed to procure a respite by a heavy
bribe or fine. More than a year’s income,
namely £66 135. 4d., was paid to the Crown
officials to secure exemption from the schedule
of the condemned smaller monasteries."

On 2 June 1537 Margaret Goldsmith, the
prioress of the ‘ Monasterye of ower Ladye of
Wallyngwells, in the countye of Nottingham,’
entered into a covenant with Richard Oglethorp
demising to him the entire monastery and all
its possessions for the term of twenty-one years,
lying in Wallingwells, Carlton in Lindrick,
Gildingwells, Handsworth, Brinsworth, Todwick,
Wales, Throapham, Dalton, Rawmarsh, Gring-
ley, Woodsetts, Harthill, ‘ Rownbromen,’ Wel-
ham, and Mattersey, in the counties of York and
Nottingham, together with the parsonage of
Campsall. The actual church of Wallingwells,
and the prioress’s chambers, the dormitory, the
infirmary, and all other houses and dwellings
pertaining to the monastery, were alone excepted,
and these were reserved for the prioress and con-
vent. Oglethorp, or his executors or assigns,
was also to be entitled to cut down and carry
away all timber and underwood. He was, how-

5 Dugdale, Mon. iv, 297.
° 1. and P. Hen. VIII. x, 364.
Thid. 633. N Ibid. xiii (2), 451.

ever, to provide at his own cost an able priest to
sing and read in the monastery, and to pay
yearly during the terms of the lease £3 65. 8d.
to the prioress, 6s. 8d. to every lady or sister of
the monastery there abiding, 115. to the prioress’s
maid for her wages, to the convent maid 6s. 8d.,
and to the cook and butler yearly for their wages
£1 6s. 8d. Further he was to supply to the
convent every week ‘one mett of whete and one
mete and one pek of rye for ther brede corn, to
be grounde molter free,’ and three bushels of
blended malt, half barley and half oats, for the
‘dryncke corn.’ He was also to deliver yearly
six fat kine, four fat pigs, six calves, twenty
sheep, six stone of cheese, a quarter and a
half of salt, and a quarter of oatmeal for the
kitchen, and 40s. in money for them to buy
fish with at their pleasure. The final clause
of the indenture bound QOglethorp to supply
the prioress yearly with one load of coals,
ten loads of wood, and twelve pounds of candles ;
and twelve loads of coal, twenty loads of wood,
and twelve pounds of candles for the convent ;
and also to find them, summer and winter, two
milk kine and two ‘suez.’ ?

The priory was surrendered on 14 December
1539, when a pension of £6 was assigned to
Margaret Goldsmith the prioress, of 535. 4d.
each to Anne Roden the sub-prioress and to
Elizabeth Kyrkeby, and of 405. each to six other
nuns,'?

PriorEssEs OF WALLINGWELLS

Emma de Stockwell, 1295 “4
Dionysia, resigned 1325

Alice de Sheffield, resigned 13538
Helen de Bolsover, resigned 1402 ”
Isabel de Durham, 1402 %

Joan Hewet, died 1465 "
Elizabeth Wilcocks, 1465 ”°
Elizabeth Kirkby, 1504 *!

Isabel Croft, 1508-11

Anne Goldsmith, 1516”

Margaret Goldsmith, 1521 ™

Dugdale, Mon. iv, 298-9.
3 T, and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), 651.
M4 Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 54.
© Thid. fol. 16.

1 Ibid. 6969, fol. 88.

9 Tbid. 6972, fol. 334.

"1 Ibid. fol. 43.

® Ibid. fol. 45.

'® Ibid.

» Ibid.

” Thid. fol. 435, 44.
* Ibid. fol. 46.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

HOUSE OF CLUNIAC MONKS

3. THE PRIORY OF LENTON

The Cluniac house of Lenton Priory, in the
suburbs of Nottingham, was founded by William
Peverel in honour of the Holy Trinity, out of
love (as the foundation charter expresses it) of
divine worship and for the good of the souls of
his lord King William, of his wife Queen Ma-
tilda, of their son King William and of all their
and his ancestors, and also for the health of his
present lord King Henry and Queen Matilda and
their children William and Matilda, and for the
health of his own soul, and those of his wife
Matilda and his son William and all their

‘children. He gave the house to God and to the
church of Cluni, and to Pontius the abbot there
and his successors, but so that it should be free
and quit of obligation save the annual payment
of a mark of silver as an acknowledgement.

By this charter Peverel substantially endowed
the house with the township of Lenton and its
appurtenances, including seven mills; the town-
ships of Radford, Morton, and Keighton,! with
all their appurtenances, and whatsoever he had
in Newthorpe and Papplewick both in wood and
plain; also, with the consent of King Henry,
the Nottingham churches of St. Mary, St. Peter,
and St. Nicholas, and the churches of Radford,
Linby, and Langar, and the tithes of his fisheries,
allin Nottinghamshire; Bakewell with all its ap-
purtenances, two parts of the tithes of Newbold,
Tideswell, Bradwell, Bakewell, Hucklow, Ash-
ford, Wormill, and Holme, and two parts of the
tithes of his demesne pastures in the Peak, namely
in Shalcross, Fernilee, Darnall, Quatford, Buxton,
Shirebrook, Stanton, Cowdale, ‘Crochil’ Cal-
low, ‘Dunningestede,’ Chelmorton, and Stern-
dale, also the whole tithe of colts and fillies,
wherever there was a_ stud-farm in_ his
Peak demesnes, together with the tithes of his
lead and of his venison both in skins and meat,
all in Derbyshire ;? Courteenhall with its appur-
tenances, two parts of all the tithes of his de-
mesnes in Blisworth and Duston, and the
churches of Harlestone, Courteenhall, Irchester,
and Rushden, all in Northamptonshire ; and the
church of Foxton, in Leicestershire, with a vir-
gate of land.

By the same charter he also granted, after a
somewhat unusual form, whatsoever his men

: (homagers or feodaries) bestowed on the priory
for the good of their souls: namely two parts of
the tithes of the demesnes of Avenel in Haddon,

1! These vills Morton and Keighton have disappeared,
but the former was part of the Peverel fee in 1086.

? The Derbyshire lands from which these gifts were
made had been bestowed by Henry I upon William
Peverel.

Meadowplace and Monyash, Derbyshire, and of
various other places in the counties of Notting-
ham, Derby, Leicester, and Buckingham.

There is no reason to doubt that the extensive
possessions enumerated above represent genuine
grants made to the priory by William Peverel
and his under-tenants; but the present charter
contains a chronological discrepancy which is
quite fatal to its authenticity. The priory is
explicitly granted to Pontius, Abbot of Cluni, but
the charter is witnessed by Gerard, Archbishop
of York. As Gerard died on 21 May 1108,
while Abbot Hugh of Cluni, the predecessor of
Pontius, died on 29 April 1109, the charter
clearly loses all claim to be regarded as a con-
temporary record. That some genuine docu-
ment or documents underlay the fabrication of
the charter is made probable by its occasional
agreement, in the names of Peverel sub-tenants,
with the evidence of Domesday; but the only
authority for the text of the charter, since the
destruction of the Lenton Chartulary in the great
Cottonian fire, has been an inspeximus of 1317-
Under these circumstances, the charter cannot
be cited as evidence for the date of the founda-
tion of the priory, but it may be noted that the
abbacy of Pontius extended from 1109 to 1125.
As the alleged bestowal of the priory upon Abbot
Pontius not improbably represents a genuine
tradition, the foundation may well have fallen
within these years. A charter of Henry I™ con-
firming Lenton to Cluni, preserved among the
muniments of the latter house, is ostensibly
not later than 1115, but its authenticity is
doubtful.

The inspeximus of 13177 records the royal
confirmation charters of Henry I, of Stephen,
of Henry II and of John, as well as the follow-
ing additional benefactions :—the church of
Wigston, Leicestershire, with the tithes of his
demesnes in that lordship and certain lands, by
Robert Earl of Leicester and Count of Meulan 3.
the tithes of the assarts or tilled lands within
Peak Forest, by William de Ferrers ; the churches
of Ossington, Notts, and Horsley, Derbyshire,
and the half church of Cotgrave, Notts, in 1144,
by Hugh de Buron and Hugh Meschines his son
and heir ; the church of Nether Broughton,
Leicestershire, with all its appurtenances, includ-
ing a chapel to which were attached 15 acres of
land, by Richard Bussell ; the Derbyshire manors
of Holme and Dunston, by Matthew de Hather-
sage; and a moiety of the church of Atten-
borough, the land of Reginald in Chilwell, the
church of Barton in Fabis, and two parts of his

% Cal. of Doc. France, no. 1383.
5 Dugdale, Mon. v, 112.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Mary’s Nottingham (with oblations), and Rad-
ford realized {48 6s. 8d.; tithe portions from
Greasley, Basford, Attenborough, Langar, Staple-
ford, Ruddington, Sutton, Thorpe in the Glebe,
and Bunny, £32 35. 2d. ; pensions from Barton
in Fabis, Basford, Costock, Cotgrave, Lenton,
Linby, Nottingham St. Nicholas, St. Peter and
the nospitals of St. John and St. Mary, and Remp-
stone, £5 6s. 4d. ; demesne lands, rents, mills,
fair, &c., at Lenton, Newthorpe, Nottingham,
and Radford, £78 13s. 8d.; and rents at Aws-
worth, Ompton, Barton in Fabis, Bradmore,
Costock, Cotgrave, Cropwell Butler, Keyworth,
Mansfield, Normanton, Rempstone, and Watnall,
£17 45. 3d. The remainder of the income came
from the counties of Chester, Lancaster, Leices-
ter, Northampton, and York.

The outgoings were considerable, including
payments to the warden of Clifton College ”
and to chantry priests in York Cathedral and in
the churches of Rotherham and North Wing-
field. The sum of £41 15. 8d. was expended
in the daily meat, drink, lodging, and firing, and
a penny each per week on five needy men, who
were to pray for the souls of William Peverel
and Adeline his wife, of Henry I and Matilda
his wife and their heirs. A further sum of
£2 135. 4d. was distributed yearly to the poor
on the anniversaries of William and Adeline
Peverel, which were kept respectively on 20 and
28 January.”

The statement made by Godfrey”? that the dis-
tinguished justice Robert de Lexinton was Prior
of Lenton during the early years of Henry III is
an error, apparently based on the casual juxtapu-
sition of Robert de Lexinton and the Prior of
Lenton on certain commissions.?”

In 1234 Gregory IX issued his mandate to
the Abbot and Prior of Dale to induct the Prior
and Convent of Lenton into corporal possession
of the church of St. Mary Nottingham, granted
to them by the pope on the resignation of
Nicholas his nephew, subdeacon and chaplain, a
vicar’s portion being reserved.”

One of his immediate successors in the papacy
granted a privilege to the Lenton monks which
would be much appreciated, as the great majority
of them came from the warmer climes of France.
They obtained a faculty from Alexander IV in
the winter of 1257-8, to wear caps suited to
their order at divine offices, in consequence of
the vehement cold of those parts.”

Several interesting records of visitations of this
priory during the 13th century are extant.

In 1262 Henry Prior of Bermondsey and John
Prior of the French house of Gassicourt were
appointed visitors of the subordinate English
houses by Yves de Poyson, twenty-fifth Abbot of

° See below. " Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 149.
” Godfrey, Hist. of Lenton, 179-81.
7a Cal, Pat. 1225-32, pp. 281, 353.

2 Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 141. ™ Thid. 355.

Cluni. They made searching inquiry as to the
condition of Lenton Priory, through two of the
obedientiaries of the house, Brother Alfred the
sub-cellarer, and Richard the almoner, who met
them in London ; but the visitors do not appear
to have gone in person to Lenton. By the
showing of these, it was manifest that the state
of the convent was all that could be desired in
respect of spiritualities, and that divine offices
were conducted becomingly and according to
church ritual ; the religious community consisted
of twenty-two monks and two lay brethren.
On a further inquiry of them as to the con-
vent’s financial condition, it is evident that the
house was loaded with debt, to the extent of
£1,000 of the English currency.”

The visitors appointed for England by the
Abbot of Cluni in 1275-6 were John, Prior of
Wenlock, and Arnulph, the abbot’s equerry.
They visited Lenton on Friday, 22 February.
The monks then numbered twenty-seven and
the lay brethren four. The priory’s debts
amounted to 180 marks. There were various
set orders enjoined by these visitors on most of
the houses, which were repeated at Lincoln,
such as the use when riding of saddle, crupper,
and leggings, the non-eating of meat with
seculars, the reading of the lection in the in-
firmary at dinner, and the tarrying of any in the
priory after compline. These were all enjoined
at Lenton, as had previously been the case at
Montacute, Wenlock, and other houses. It also
came to the visitors’ knowledge at Lenton that
the lay brothers were wearing red or russet
habits ; they were ordered henceforth to use as
their distinguishing colour something darker and
more nearly approaching black.”

The English visitation of 1279 for the Abbot
of Cluni was made by the Prior of Lenton in
conjunction with the French Prior of Mont-
Didier. They arrived at Lenton on 6 Septem-
ber and found twenty-five monks, the usual
complement, leading good and commendable
lives, living according to rule, and solemnly con-
ducting their devotional exercises. As the Prior
of Lenton was himself one of the two visitors, it
is to be hoped that only the Prior of Mont-
Didier was responsible for the report sent to
Cluni, for it was stated therein that the superior
of the Nottingham house was ‘a worthy good
man, of blameless repute.’ When he entered on
his office there were debts of 935 marks in
money and of forty sacks of woolat 15 marks the
sack. Ofthis latter debt thirty-two sacks had been
paid, but the money debt had risen to 1,030
marks, chiefly through the strife with the chapter
of Lichfield, ‘composed of rich and influential
persons, some of them being about the King.’
The matter in dispute was said to concern a
yearly tithe of 250 marks ; the prior had already

* Duckett, Visit. of Engl. Cluniac Foundations, 11, 12-
* Ibid. 17, 18.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

spent 160 marks in litigation, and anticipated
further legal trouble and expense. The prior,
when first entering on his duties, found an in-
sufficiency of all necessary provisions, and he had
also had to pay an annuity of 40 marks to his
predecessor, which could ill be spared. ‘There was
another debt of £40 on certain property, which
originated with Roger, a former prior.”

In 1263 the priory became involved in a most
serious affray connected with the patronage of the
church of St. George’s Burton-on-Trent, which
doubtless arose through the preferment of absentee
foreigners. According to the deposition of Bartho-
lomew son of Adinulf, knight, of Anagni, papal
chaplain and rector of St. George’s, the Prior and
Convent of Lenton, pretending that he was dead,
presented to it one Thomas de Raley ; where-
upon Bartholomew obtained papal letters ad-
dressed to Master John de Anagni, papal chap-
lain, resident in England, who, on the prior’s
promise to expedite the business at his own ex-
pense, committed the matter to him. After-
wards the prior went to the church of St. George
with Bonushomo de Portia, the rector’s proctor ;
but certain servants of Thomas de Raley stripped
the proctor in the prior’s presence, robbed him of
the papal letters, and eventually killed him in
the churchyard. The prior and Thomas were
cited to appear before the pope within a given
time, which they did not do, and were therefore
declared contumacious and excommunicated by
the Cardinal, to whom the pope had committed
the matter. This excommunication was pro-
nounced in November 1263, but it was not until
August of the following year that the Bishop of
London received the papal mandate to publish
the excommunication of the prior and ‘Thomas
de Raley throughout the archdeaconry of Not-
tingham and in other prescribed places, until
they made condign satisfaction in the cathedral
church of London.”

In 1267 the vicar of Lenton complained to
the diocesan that the Prior and Convent of Len-
ton were detaining certain mortuaries and obla-
tions that pertained to the vicarage. Giffard
directed the Archdeacon of Nottingham to hold
an inquiry, and if the allegation were true, to
order the priory to restore the payments in dis-
pute.”

The Prior of Lenton in 1285 appointed
brother Thomas de Amundesham, a monk of
that house, to serve as general and special proctor,
for presenting in his name to vacant benefices,
&c. The cause for this was doubtless the visit
of the prior to a general chapter at Cluni.

The finding of a Nottingham jury, in 1284,
that William son of Nicholas de Cauntlow was
born in the abbey of Lenton (in abbatia de Lenton),

7 Duckett, Visit. of Engl. Clun. Houses, 31.
8 Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 406-7.

*» York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 34 d.

3° Tbid. Wickwane, fol. 70.

and was baptized in the church of the abbey on
Palm Sunday twenty-one years before, is at first
sight a little startling.*! But within the precincts
of so important a priory as this there would be
sure to be special guest-chambers for visitors of
distinction, and occasionally, though somewhat
irregularly, they would be of the fair sex.

In fact Lenton Priory possessed in all prob-
ability a finer set of guest-chambers than any
that could be found in the town of Nottingham,
Henry III lodged at the priory in 1230. It was
at Lenton Priory that Edward I sojourned in
April 1302, and again in April of the following
year ; whilst Edward II visited the house for some
days in the year of his accession, and again in
1323. Edward III was a royal visitor in 1336,
as well as on other occasions.”

In 1289 Pope Nicholas 1V wrote to Edward I
requesting him to restore to Peter de Siriniaco
the full possession of Lenton Priory, of which he
had been wrongfully deprived, as other priors
had been, by the abbot and general chapter of
Cluni, in consequence of appeals to the Roman
court in regard to the non-observance of statutes
made by Gregory IX for the reformation of the
order, and to which Ranaudus or Renaud, a
Cluniac monk, on presentation of the abbot, had
been inducted by the king as patron. The pope
urged Edward to assign to the proctor of Peter
de Siriniaco possession of this priory, as the Abbot
of Cluni had died at Rome whilst the cause of
Peter and the priory was pending, and Peter’s
presence was required at Cluni for the election
of an abbot.”

There were various disputes between the
priory and the mayor and burgesses of Notting-
ham as to the duration of the great Lenton fair
and its ordinances. An interesting agreement
was arranged between the parties in the reign of
Edward I, c.1300. The priory pledged itself
to be content with eight days, beginning on the
eve of St. Martin, remitting four days, and pro-
mising never to ask for any extension beyond
the octave. The priory also covenanted for
themselves and their successors that cloth mer-
chants, apothecaries, pilchers (makers of fur gar-
ments), and mercers of the community of the
town, wishing to hire booths in the fair, were to
pay 12d. for as long as the fair lasted, excepting
those selling blacks (B/akkes) and ordinary cloths,
whose fee was to be 8d. All others desiring to
hire booths were to pay 8d., save that those sell-
ing iron and desiring ground as well as a booth
paid 4d., or without extra ground 2d. Tanners and
shoemakers not occupying ground were to be
quit of covered and uncovered stalls, Each

booth was to be 8 ft. long and 8 ft. broad. None

51 Cal. Gen. i, 139.

8? Rymer, Foedera, ii, 900, 922 ; ili, 13, 143 Pat.
and Close R.

3 Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 505-7 ; see also Rymer,
Foedera, ii, 453.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

of the community of Nottingham were to hire
booths or stalls for any stranger, or for the sale
of any alien goods, but only for themselves and
their own wares. All men of Nottingham buy-
ing and selling hides, tanned or untanned, and
all from Nottingham passing through Lenton in
fair time with carts, wagons, or packhorses, were
to be quit of toll and custom. In return for
this quittance, the mayor and burgesses granted
to the prior and convent a building for ever in
the Saturday market free of charge, and that no
market of any kind of merchandise be held within
the town of Nottingham during the eight days
of the Lenton fair, except within houses, and in
doors and windows.**

The priory was in an unhappy financial con-
dition in 1313. In May of that year Edward II,
at the request of the prior and convent, appointed
John de Hotham to be keeper of that house and
of all issues and profits and possessions, as the
king had taken it into his protection on account
of its poverty and indebtedness. After a reason-
able allowance had been made for the prior and
convent and their men, all issues were to be
reserved for the discharge of debts, and for making
good the defects of the priory. So long as the
priory was in Hotham’s custody, no sheriff,
bailiff, or other minister of the king was to lodge
there without his licence.*® This appointment,
which was ‘during pleasure,’ was renewed in
the following year.*®

In 1319, much to his credit, Prior Geoffrey
de Chintriaco had the courage to resist the papal
order to induct the proctor of Bertrand, Cardinal
of St. Marcellus, to the rectory of Ratcliffe on
Soar. In January 1320 Pope John XXII issued
his mandate to the Archbishop of York and the
Bishops of Hereford and Winchester to cite the
prior to appear personally before him to answer
for his disobedience, and at the same time to cite
in like manner Walter de Almiarslond, who had
“thrust himself into the parish church of Radcliff
of which papal provision had been made to
Cardinal Bertrand.’ Prior Geoffrey put in no
appearance at Rome, and was excommunicated
by the Cardinal of St. Susanna as papal commis-
sioner. For about three years the prior remained
contumacious, and then in November 1323 a
fresh mandate was issued by Pope John to the
Archbishop of York and two others not only to
renew the citation of Prior Geoffrey to Rome,
but also to publish and enforce the suspension of
the papal letters of protection granted to the
English Cluniacs, under which the Prior of
Lenton had sheltered himself in the matter of
Cardinal Bertrand, and to inhibit the Abbot of
Westminster, as conservator of the order of Cluni
in England, from taking any action in the matter.
Early in 1327, immediately after the accession of

* Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 60-7.
35 Pat. 6 Edw. H, pt. ui, m. 11.
8 Ibid. 7 Edw. IJ, pt. i, m. 15.

Edward III, Prior Geoffrey again disobeyed a
papal mandate by refusing to put Cardinal Fouget
in possession of the rectory of Ratcliffe on Soar,
Being threatened by the pope with the destruc-
tion of his house of Lenton, the prior petitioned
the king, and implored him by the love of God
to write letters excusatory to Rome. To this
petition the king acceded and wrote to Pope
John XXII from Nottingham on 15 May 1327,
and also at the same date to the Cardinal of
St. Susanna, explaining the situation and justify-
ing the prior.*”

At the close, however, of 1328, the pope
secured the due submission of Prior Geoffrey and
removed the excommunication.* In 1331 Prior
Geoffrey resigned Lenton, which was reserved
by Pope John to Guichard de Jou, monk of
Cluni: the priory of Montacute being at the
same time reserved for Geoffrey.*°

A grant was obtained from Edward in 1327,
that on any voidance of the priory no escheator
or other minister was to enter or intermeddle
with its possessions ; but that, at the request of
the sub-prior and convent, the sheriff or the con-
stable of Nottingham Castle should place a ser-
vant at the door for the protection of the goods
of the priory, taking nothing therefrom save his
entertainment. It was stated in the grant that
this was but a confirmation of the original
chartered privilege of William Peverel, the
founder, whom we know to have been appointed
castellan of Nottingham in 1068.

Edward III, on his accession, restored to the
priory of Lenton and sixty-four other alien
priories their lands in England, seized by his
father on account of the war in Aquitaine.*! But
on the resumption of the war with France the
Crown resumed its hold on the property of Len-
ton and of the other alien priories. ‘The Patent
Rolls of both Edward III and Richard II abound
in entries of Crown presentations to the numerous
benefices whose advowsons were nominally in
the gift of the Prior and Convent of Lenton.

The year 1329 was of some celebrity in the
annals of Lenton Priory on account of two law-
suits which were then brought to an issue. In
the one case a dispute had arisen between the
Prior of Lenton and the Abbot of Vale Royal,
Cheshire, in consequence of the former selling
the tithes of beasts pasturing in Edale, Derby-
shire. The abbot entreated Queen Isabella,
who was at that time lady of the Castle and
Honour of the High Peak, to instruct her bailiff
to see that the tithes both of deer and cattle in
Edale were reserved for the benefit of the church
of Castleton, of which the abbot was rector. An
inquisition on oath was accordingly held, with

% Parl. R. ii, 393 3 Rymer, Foedera, iv, 289.
%* Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 194, 234-5, 284.
5° Ibid. i, 346.

“ Rymer, Foedera, iv, 246.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

the result that the ancient rights of the church
of Castleton were confirmed.”

The other case was the revival of an old dis-
pute as to the advowson of the church of Harle-
_ stone, Northants, which had been granted to
' the priory by Peverel in the foundation charter,
but had been claimed on several occasions by
alleged Peverel representatives. At last in 1329
one Thomas de Staunton claimed the advowson,
stating that his ancestor William de Staunton
had been seised of it in the time of Henry III,
and had successfully presented to it. Both
parties agreed to submit the decision of the cause
to single combat, and appointed their champions,
William Fitz Thomas for the claimant, and
William Fitz John for the Prior of Lenton. All
the formalities necessary to a trial by combat
were enacted, but at the last moment, when
both champions had been sworn at the bar and
were about to advance, Staunton was persuaded
to relinquish all claim for himself and his heirs
to the prior and his successors.**

It was in this year, too, that the pleas De Quo
Warranto were held in Nottingham at Martin-
mas. By the production of charters the Prior
of Lenton was able to establish the claim of his
house to the great Lenton fair, to full manorial
rights (including gallows) at Lenton and at Cot-
grave, to freedom from every kind of toll, to
market privileges, and to voidance of escheat
during vacancy.

In 1331 the priory procured the appropriation
of the church of Beeston, and in the following
year that of Wigston.

In consequence of the great burdens of the
priory, the king granted his protection for two
years in 1334, appointing three custodians to
administer the temporalities.*”

In 1345 Astorgius de Gorciis, Prior of Lenton,
in conjunction with the Cluniac priors of Lewes
and Northampton and of other English houses,
refused to pay his proper subsidy to Iterius,
Abbot of Cluni; the abbot appealed to Rome,
whereupon Clement VI issued his mandate to the
Archbishop of Canterbury to cite Astorgius and
the other defaulting priors to appear before him.®

On the petition of Prior Astorgius, to whom
the king had committed the custody of the priory
at farm for such time as the priory remained in
his hands on account of the war with France,
Edward IIT in 1347 granted licence for him to
lease the manor of Dunston for ten years, and
to sell all portions of the tithes of sheaves
and hay pertaining to the priory in the High
Peak for a like period. The plea for this ex-

® Harl. MS. 2064, fol. 251.
“© Godfrey, Hist. of Lenton, 81.
“ Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 643.
4 Thoroton, Nofts. 211.
“© Pat. 5 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 25.
. * Ibid. 8 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 2.
© Cal. of Papal Letters, iii, 19.

2 97

ception was the debt and other misfortunes that
were overwhelming the house. On a further
petition in the same year they obtained the
royal sanction to lease their High Peak lead
tithes for sixteen years to William de Amyas.””

Prior Peter in 1350 obtained the assistance of
the civil power to try to secure the arrest of
John de Tideswell, John de Rempstone, and
Richard de Cortenhale, apostate monks of Len-
ton, who were wandering about the country in
secular dress.

An interesting case occurred among the pleas
of the borough court of Nottingham in 1355,
relative to the repair of a costly pyx belonging
to the priory. Prior Peter appeared, by his
attorney, .against Walter the Goldsmith, com-
plaining that though Walter had covenanted to
repair a vessel of crystal to carry the body of
our Lord Jesus Christ with pure silver and gold,
he had broken the agreement in three parti-
culars: (1) in not making it of pure silver ;
(2) in not well or suitably gilding it ; and (3) in
soldering the vessel with tin instead of silver.
The prior claimed 100s. for this serious damage.
Walter replied that the vessel had been well and
suitably repaired, and would verify this by a
good inquest ; an inquest was accordingly ordered
against the next court. The prior further ap-
peared against Walter on a plea of debt ; alleging
that he was unjustly withholding from him a noble
and a half of gold ; the prior had delivered two
gold nobles to Walter wherewith to gild the vessel,
but only a half noble had been used. On this
claim Walter also demanded and obtained an
inquest. As a set off, Walter in his turn ap-
peared against the prior on a plea of debt,
alleging that he was unjustly withholding 36s.
in silver, which was the covenanted price for the
work, although repeatedly asked for the same.*!
Unfortunately the issue of this case is not extant.

In February 1361-2 Edward III restored to
the Prior of Lenton all the lands, tenements,
advowsons, &c., that had been in the hands of
the Crown by reason of the war with France.”
This was in consequence of the peace of
Bretigny ; but on the recurrence of war a few
years later Lenton and the other alien priories
were again in a like plight.

The custody of three messuages and 164 acres
of land of the cell of Kersall, Lancashire, was
committed to Lenton Priory.®

Grant for life, during the war with France,
was made by Richard II in 1387 to William
Kylmyngton, one of the king’s servants, of the
office of porter of Lenton Priory, with power to
execute the office by deputy.*#

* Pat. 21 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 17, 2.
® Ibid. 24 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 14d.
5! Nort. Bor. Rec. i, 161.

* Rymer, Foedera, vi, 311.

5 Abbrev. Rot. Orig. ii, 314.

* Pat. 10 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 11.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

In May 1389 Richard II requested the Arch-
bishop of York to inquire into certain dissensions
that had arisen between Geoffrey, Prior of Lenton
(who rendered a certain yearly farm to the king
for that alien priory), and certain of his monks
who had rebelled against him, to examine the
condition of the priory and inform himself as to
its rule and the rebellion, correcting defects and
removing monks refusing obedience to other
houses of the same rule. A further commission
to laymen about the same time shows that the
disturbance was a serious one, involving the
breaking open houses and chests of the priory,
taking two horses valued at {£10 as well as
other goods and moneys, and so threatening the
prior and his servants that neither could he
attend to divine service nor they to the culti-
vation of the land. Some of the monks seem
to have taken the side of the mob.*

It was under Prior Geoffrey that this much-
tried alien priory became nationalized or reputed
denizen, and no longer liable to be seized into
the king’s hands. Richard II sealed this grant,
with the assent of the council, on 7 October
1392, a sum of 500 marks having been paid to
the Crown.*8

In 1395 a commission was issued to the
Sheriff of the counties of Nottingham and Derby,
to the Mayor of Nottingham and others, to
arrest and bring before the king and council one
William de Repyngdon, a monk who had been
to the Roman court without licence and there
acquired divers bulls for obtaining certain offices
in the priory of Lenton, without the assent
either of the king or of the prior and convent of
that place.®”

The general control that the priory exercised
over the ecclesiastical affairs of Nottingham was
again illustrated in the year 1400, when the
foundation instrument of Plumtree’s Hospital at
Nottingham Bridge provided that the presenta-
tion of the two chantry chaplains was to be in
the hands of the Prior and Convent of Lenton.”

Boniface IX, in 1402, permitted the Prior and
Convent of Lenton to let to farm to clerks or
laymen all fruits, tithes, and oblations of their
churches, chapels, portions, pensions, and other
possessions, without requiring licence of the
ordinaries.*

A visitation report sent to Cluni in 1405
gives the proper complement of the brethren as
thirty-two, although some maintained that there
was no fixed number. Six daily masses were
celebrated, of which three were conventual with
music and three low masses; of the latter one
was of the Trinity and the two others for the
dead. The visitors found that monastic obliga-

55 Pat, 12 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 9, 16d.
86 Ibid. 16 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 19.

57 Ibid. 19 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 21d.

583 Thoroton, Notts. 494.

89 Cal. of Papal Letters, v, $45.

tions were all duly and strictly observed. Wil-
liam Peverel is named as the founder, and it is
added that he and his successors, as patrons, were
bound to transmit yearly to the church of Cluni
a mark of silver, a provision confirmed by the
king’s letters patent.

The same visitation records that the cell of
Roche, subordinate to Lenton Priory, consisted
of a prior and one monk.”

On 11 June 1414 the temporalities of this
priory were made over by the Crown to a prior
of considerable celebrity in the world of letters.
Thomas Elmham was a monk of St. Augustine’s,
Canterbury, but joined the Cluniac order in the
year of his appointment as Prior of Lenton. In
1416 he was appointed vicar-general to Ray-
mond, Abbot of Cluni, for England and Scotland,
Ten years later (1426) he was made commissary-
general for all vacant benefices belonging to the
Cluniac order in England, Scotland, and Ireland.
In the same year he resigned his priorship of
Lenton and was succeeded by John Elmham,
who was probably his younger brother. Elm-
ham was an historical author of no small repute.
His history of the monastery of St. Augustine,
Canterbury, was published in the ‘ Chronicles
and Memorials’ series as early as 1858. He
was also the author of a prose life of Henry V."

The 15th-century records of the borough
court of Nottingham contain various incidental
references to the priory. Thus in 1436 Prior
Elmham and John Dyghton his fellow monk
complained, through their attorney, of Robert
Selby, carpenter, in a plea of debt of 2s. 8d. ; it
was alleged that Selby on Sunday 8 May 1435
bought of Dyghton a cowl of black worsted,
promising to pay for it at the feast of St. John
Baptist, which promise he had failed to keep.
Another action by the same prior was also
against Selby, for a table and trestles which he
refused to deliver ; and a third was for a debt of
tithes of hay.”

In 1464 William Lord Hastings, then Lord
Chamberlain, was a guest at Lenton Priory; the
corporation made him a present on Easter Day
of ‘iij galons of rede wyne.’ ®

In the year 1504 the royal free chapel of
Tickhill, which had for some time belonged to
this priory, was transferred to the abbey of
Westminster.“

A corrody was granted by Henry VIII within
this monastery in 1510, under privy seal, to
Robert Penne, gentleman of the Chapel Royal.®

The foundation deed of the Nottingham Free
School, dated 22 November 1513, shows great

6! Godfrey, in his Hist. of Lenton (182-9), gives a
good summary of the life and writings of Elmham.

6 Nott. Bor. Rec. ii, 153-5.

§ Ibid. 378.

Dugdale, Men. v, 109.

6 T. and P. Hen. VIII, i, 1081.

RELIGIOUS

trust in and affection for Lenton Priory. ‘The
foundress provided that if the mayor and corpora-
tion were in any way remiss in their trust, the
Prior and Convent of Lenton were to have the
rule, guidance, and oversight of the lands and
the school.®

When there was a vacancy in the headship of
this house in 1534, Sir Anthony Babington
wrote to Cromwell begging that the new prior,
in succession to John Annesley, deceased, might
be chosen from one of the monks of the house,
as it was then likely to prosper better than under
a stranger ; ‘for which reason my lord Cardinal
in his time made Thomas Holrose prior and
Simmes (?) that is late prior.’ 7

Nicholas Hethe or Heath, the last prior, was
appointed by patent on 27 December 1535.%
Soon after his appointment the new prior wrote
to Cromwell one of those numerous letters which
show so plainly the extortions of which that
minister was guilty. Heath states that it was of
Cromwell’s favour that he obtained this pro-
motion, but he had not found it in so clear a
state as had been anticipated. He had granted
to ‘Mr. Richard’ (Cromwell’s nephew) for
Cromwell’s use £100, but begged he would
take {60 and remit the rest till Martinmas.
He was bound to keep up hospitality, and if he did
not get this remission would have to resort to
some London merchant, which would be to his
great hindrance. He had accomplished Crom-
well’s pleasure touching the cell of Kersall in
Lancashire. He further begged that the new
rule discharging all religious under twenty-five
might be relaxed in favour of two of their young
monks, for all his brethren, except four or five,
were very impotent and of great age, and re-
quested his favour that they might continue in
their religion.

The quasi-legal means adopted to dissolve
this monastery differed from all others save the
similar case of the Cistercian abbey of Woburn
in Bedfordshire. Lenton had been much per-
turbed by Cromwell’s visitors. Here, as else-
where, certain religious were incited or tempted
to bring railing accusations against their superiors.
Hamlet Pentrich, one of the monks, brought a
charge against his prior before the Privy Council,
being released for the purpose from the Fleet,
where he was prisoner. Pentrich was, however,
a twice-forgiven ‘apostate,’ and for a third time
he forsook his monastery, carrying away with
him goods belonging to the priory.”

Deering, Nottingham, 147.

8’ [. and P. Hen. VIII, vii, 1626 ; ‘Simmes’ is
probably an aéias for Annesley.

% Pat. 27 Hen. VIII, pt. ii, m. 9.

L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 1234.

Tbid. 655. The letter of the prior about this
case is dated 12 April, but no year. It is wrongly
placed in the calendar, as it is evidently of the year
1537, and not 1536.

HOUSES

It is clear that Pentrich and one or two more
were ready enough to repeat or invent monastery
gossip against the king and Cromwell, in order
to save themselves from the results of their
own disorderly conduct. A long statement that
reached the Privy Council in the spring of 1537
as to talk over the fire (in the Misericorde) at
Christmastide contains it would seem much truth,
and in the light of resulting consequences is
somewhat pathetic reading. Said Dan Haughton,
‘It is a marvellous world, for the King will
hang a man for a word speaking nowadays.’
‘Yea,’ said Dan Ralph, ‘but the King of Heaven
will not do so, and he is the King of all Kings ;
but he that hangs a man in this world for a
word speaking, he shall be hanged in another
world himself.’ Then, said the sub-prior, ‘I was
afraid for my life, for I had heard many of the
monks speak ill of the King and Queen, and
lord Privy Seal, whom they love worst of any
man in the world,’

The documents effecting the dissolution of
Lenton Priory, though fairly numerous, are
fragmentary, and it seems impossible now to
discover with precision under what nominal plea
the prior and many of his monks were accused
of high treason ; but there can be little doubt
that it was accomplished under the provisions of
what was known as the Verbal Treasons Act of
December 1534.” Prior Heath was seized and
thrown into prison in February 1538, and it is
clear from Cromwell’s private ‘remembrances’
or notes that his doom was fixed and he was to
be executed.”® In March the prior with eight
of his monks and four labourers of Lenton were
indicted for treason. The names of the monks
were :— Ralph Swenson, Richard Bower, Ri-
chard Atkinson, Christopher Browne, John
Trewruan, John Adelenton, William Berry, and
William Gylham.”4 The prior and Ralph
Swenson, according to a letter from the special
commissioners to Cromwell dated 11 April, were
the first to be executed.”> One other monk,
William Gylham, as well as the four labourers,
was also sentenced, according to the Control-
ment Roll, to the shocking punishment then
dealt out for treason, of being hanged, drawn,
and quartered, with all its unspeakable barbarities.
The executions were at Nottingham or its
immediate vicinity, and, judging from analogy,
directly in front of the priory, where some of

" L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii, 892; see also gt2,
1327.

” Under this Act it was high treason to deprive
the king or queen by words or writing of their
dignity, title, or name, or to pronounce the king a
tyrant.

3 L. and P. Hen. VILL, xiii, 877.

™ Control R. 30 Hen. VIII, m. 39. Cited by
Gasquet in Hen. VIII and Engl. Mon. ii, 190, where
various other particulars are set forth.

” L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (1), 786.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

the quarters of the victims would be displayed.
There are two references to these executions in
the chamberlain’s accounts of Nottingham for
1537-8. The town gave my Lord’s judges
two gallons of wine, costing 16d., ‘when the
Monks of Lenton suffered death.’ Another
charge in these accounts is 2d. paid for clearing
Cow Lane ‘when the monks of Lenton suffered
death.’ Judging from this last entry it is possible
that the victims were done to death in the
market-place, for Cow Lane was one of the
principal approaches; the name was altered to
Church Street in 1812.78

As the priory was dissolved by attainder, not
a single monk or servant of the house obtained a
pension. Even the five poor men maintained
there in accordance with the charter of the time
of Henry I were apparently thrust out penniless.

The site of the priory has changed hands with
extraordinary frequency ever since the dissolution
of the house.

Priors oF LENTON

Humphrey, temp. Henry 1”

Philip”

Alexander, occurs c. 1189”

Peter, occurs 1200-1214 ©

Damascenus *

Roger, 1230 ”

Roger de Normanton,®* occurs 1241

Hugh Bluet, occurs 1251 ®

Roger Norman, 1259 *

Matthew, 1269 *

Peter de Siriniaco, occurs 1281, 1285, 1287 ®

Reginald de Jora, occurs 1289, 1290

William, occurs 1291, 1292, 1294, 1299,
1305, 1306 ©

Stephen de Moerges, 1309

78 Nott. Bor. Rec. iii, 376-7.

7 Nichols, Leics. ii, 419.

78 Baker, Northants, i, 142.

9 Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 2.

8 Cart. 14 John 323; Thoroton, Notts. 244,
355, 373:

81 Named as predecessor of Roger de Normanton ;
Nichols, Leics. ii, 110, citing register of Croxton
Abbey.

8 Pat. 15 Hen. III, m. 6d.

83 Probably the same as Roger.

& Nicholls, Leics. 11, 110.

8 Harl. Chart, 84 F. 35.

% Pat. 44 Hen. III, m. 3.
Montacute.

7 Pat. 54 Hen. III. Formerly almoner of Lewes.

% Pat, 10 Edw. I, m. 213 13, m. 43 14, m. 6.

8° 4bbrev. Rot. Orig. (Rec. Com.),i, 659.

% Pat, 19 Edw. I, m. 7; 20, m. 18 3 22, Mm. 225
27, mM. 12 3 33, pt. i,m. 6 3 34, Mm. 29.

1 Pat. 3 Edw. II, m. 25.

Formerly Prior of

Reginald de Crespy, 1313

Geoffrey, 1316 ® -
William de Pinnebury, occurs 1324
Guy de Arlato, occurs 1333 is
Astorgius de Gorciis, occurs 1336-7
Peter de Abbeville, occurs 1355
Geoffrey de Rochero, occurs 1389 "
Richard Stafford, died 1414”

Thomas Elmham, 14141

John Elmham 1426™

John Mydylburgh, 1450

Thomas Wollore, 1458 1°

Richard Dene, 1481 ™

John Ilkeston, occurs 1500, 1505
Thomas Gwyllam, occurs 1512, 1516 1°
Thomas Nottingham a/ias Hobson, 1525
John Annesley, 1531

Nicholas Heath, 1535 ™

SEALS

There is a fine but imperfect impression of the
common seal of the priory attached to a charter
c. 1212. It is a pointed oval, about 3 in. by 2
in. when perfect. The obverse has Our Lord
enthroned on a rainbow, right hand raised in
benediction, book in left hand. Legend :—

« « GILLUM: CONVENTUS SAN ...NTO...

On the reverse is the smaller pointed counter-
seal of Prior Peter, showing the prior in half
length, holding a book, in base a plinth with
arcade of round-headed arches. Legend :—

-+ SIGNUM PETRI P ... RIS DE LENTONA 1%

There is a sulphur cast at the British Museum
of very imperfect impression of a second seal of
the 15th century, which has the Trinity in a
carved niche. ‘The only lettering remaining
iS w-@ « MONASTERIL (So. 31?

™ Pat. 7 Edw. I, pt. i, m. 15.

% Pat. g Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 30.

% Plac. 17 Edw. II, cited in Dugdale, Mon. v, 109.

% Pat. 7 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 20; pt. ii, m. 19.

% Pat. 10 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 37 3 11 Edw. III, pt.
i, m. 17.

7 Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 160.

% Pat. 12 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 9.

* Thid. 9.

1 Pat. 2 Hen. V, pt. i, m. 19.

101 Pat. 5 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 12.

10 Pat. 29 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 19.

3 Pat. 37 Hen. VI, pt. ii, m. 9.

104 Pat. 21 Edw. IV, pt. i, m. 11.

105 Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 407 ; ili, 76, 120, 182.

106 Thid. iii, 120, 134, 345, 422.

7 Pat. 27 Hen. VII, pt. ii, m. 9.

18 Harl. Chart. 44 F. 19.

109 Seal Casts, lxx, 46.

100

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

HOUSE OF CISTERCIAN MONKS

4. THE ABBEY OF RUFFORD

Rufford Abbey was founded towards the end of
the reign of Stephen by Gilbert de Gaunt, Earl of
Lincoln! It was dedicated to the honour of the
Blessed Virgin, and colonized from Rievaulx
Abbey with Cistercian monks. By the foundation
charter, the house was at first endowed with all
the founder’s lands and appurtenances at Rufford,
with thirty acres on the banks of the Trent, and
also with lands at ‘ Cratel,’ Barton, and Wil-
loughby. A short subsequent charter of Robert
de Gaunt, brother of the founder, testifies to the
justices, sheriff, and other officials of the king
that his brother had given to the abbey the whole
of his lordship of Eakring.?

Harleian MS. 1063 is a full transcript of the
chartulary or register compiled by John, Abbot
of Rufford, in the year 1471, from the various
charters and muniments of the monastery; it
covers 188 paper folios and is clearly written.

It begins with charters of confirmation of
Stephen,’ Henry II, and later kings.

An inspeximus confirmation charter granted
to the abbey in 1462 by Edward IV supplies a
comprehensive survey of the more important
Rufford charters. They were as follows :—(1)
two charters of Stephen ; (2) a charter of Henry II
confirming the original grants of Earl Gilbert ;
(3) a charter of the same king exonerating them
from toll, passage, and pontage ; (4) a charter of
Richard I, exonerating them from toll ; (5) letters
patent of John, licensing them to erect a dyke
between their wood of Beskhall and the town of
Wellow (Welhagh), and to build keepers’ lodges ;
(6) two confirmatory charters of Henry III ; (7)
two charters of Edward I confirming grants of
Rotherham ; (8) a demise of 1278 by Abbot Bono
and the convent of Clairvaux to Rufford of a
moiety of the church of Rotherham, of the gift
of John de Lexinton at a rent of £20; (9) the
record of a forest inquisition, 15 Edward I, where-
by it was found that the men of Clipston and
Edwinstowe ought to take nothing in the woods
of the abbot and convent within Sherwood
Forest ; (10) grants by Robert de Waddesley and
Edmund de Dacre to Elias, then abbot ; (11) a
charter of free warren grants, 13 Edward I; (12)
two letters patent of Edward I granting special
wood rights; and (13) letters patent 28 Ed-
ward III as to the acquisitions in mortmain.*

' The Chronicle of Louth Park gives 1146 as the
exact year, but the Chester Chronicle 1148. See
Dugdale, Mon. v, 517-18.

? These charters are cited in fullin Dugdale, Moz. v,
518.

3 Three confirmation charters of Stephen are cited
in Thoroton, Nofts. ili, 336.

‘ Pat. 1 Edw. IV, pt.v, m. 20.

There are a large number of original grants,
charters, bulls, and agreements pertaining to this
abbey among both the Harleian and Cotton
charters of the British Museum. Most of these
are either of minor importance or are also referred
to in the patent rolls or chartulary. Among the
bulls, however, is one of the English Pope
Adrian IV, of the year 1156, confirming all the
donations and privileges of Rufford;°® and
another of his successor Alexander III, dated
1161, whereby it was declared that no tithes
were to be paid on lands brought into cultivation
by the monks of Rufford with their own hands
or at their own expense.®

In the year 1159 an agreement was entered
into between the Abbot of Rufford and Thomas
Paul, Canon of York, in the presence of Roger,
Archbishop of York, and Ailred, Abbot of
Rievaulx, that the church of Rufford as a mother
church should pay no more tithes after the death
of the said Thomas. ‘The abbot paid Canon
‘Thomas ten marks for the tithes of the past ten
years, and covenanted to pay a mark of silver
yearly during his life.”

A grant was made by Henry III in 1233 to
the Abbot and monks of Rufford, confirmatory
of the gift of Ralph son of Nicholas of all his land
in ‘Werkenefeld,’ ® accompanied by licence to
inclose the said land with a dyke and hedge, so
that beasts of the chase might have free entry
and exit, and to cultivate the said land, build on it,
or dispose of it as they will.®

In the same year the king licensed the abbot
and monks to enlarge the courts of their house
by taking in an acre of the king’s wood, without
any interference from the forest ministers.!°

In 1251 Henry III granted a charter confirming
the abbey in numerous additional benefactions,
particularly of lands at Morton near Botham-
sall, Eakring, Hockerton, Kirton, Willoughby,
Walesby, Besthorpe, Maplebeck, and Kelham,
Nottinghamshire, and Abney and Brackenfield
(Britterithe), Derbyshire. By the same charter
there were also confirmed to the monks the rights
in Sherwood Forest granted them by Henry II,
and approved by Geoffrey de Langley, forest
justice, namely licence to take green or growing
wood throughout the forest so far as it was
necessary for their own use, and estovers for all
their granges both within and without the forest,
and to have their own forester to guard their own

® Harl. Chart. 111 A. 2.

§ Ibid. 111 A. 3.

” Harl. MS. 1063, 6-7.

8 The site of this place is unknown, but it lay some-
where near Bilsthorpe.

® Chart. R. 17 Hen. III, m. ro.

1 Close R. 17 Hen. III, m. 11.

IOI

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

wood, who was to render fealty to the king’s
foresters and verderers.’!

The Abbot of Rufford in 1275 maintained his
right to all manner of chartered privileges for his
house and its tenants on their Nottinghamshire
lands, including freedom from every form of
secular exactions on all that they bought or sold
and on all that was conveyed to them, whence-
soever it came, whether by land or water. The
right of free warren in all their lordships was also
upheld.”

Four years later the abbot was equally suc-
cessful in maintaining his full manorial rights at
Rotherham, including assize of bread and ale,
tumbrel, pillory, standard measure and gallows,
as well as free warren at Rotherham and Carle-
cotes,}4

Reference has already been made to Arch-
bishop Wickwane’s action in ordering the release
in 1280 of two conversi of this house from the
civil prison of Nottingham and their transference
to canonical confinement.

Early in the reign of Edward I John de Vescy
granted to Thomas de Stayngreve, Abbot of
Rufford, and to his monks eight bovates of land
at Rotherham, together with the manor of the
same, the advowson of the mediety of the church,
the fair, market, mills, ovens, courts, and other
appurtenances.}®

In August 1288 Henry, Abbot of Rufford,
obtained a licence to cross the seas to attend the
general chapter of his order, and to be absent
until a fortnight after Easter.’ Edward I spent
September 1290 in Nottinghamshire, Derby-
shire, and Northamptonshire ; on the 18th he was
at Rufford Abbey, where he sealed a variety of
documents.”

Licence was granted to the abbot in 1291,
after an inquisition ad quod damnum by John
de Vescy, justice of the forest, to fell and sell the
wood growing on 40 acres of his wood within
Sherwood Forest.’%

In 1292 the Abbot of Rufford again obtained
royal licence to leave the kingdom, from May
until All Saints tide, to attend a general Cister-
cian chapter.!® In 1300 the abbot was allowed

"Chart. R. 36 Hen. III, m. 22,

'" Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 632-3.

3 Ibid. 206-7.

4 York Epis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 178 d.

18 As set forth in a confirmation and inspection
charter of 1283 ; Chart. R. 11 Edw. I, m. 6,

® Pat. 16 Edw. I,m. 10. The rule obliging all
abbots to attend each annual chapter was relaxed in
favour of England owing to distance. A deputation
attended yearly from England. On this occasion the
Abbot of Rufford was accompanied by the abbots of
Pipewell, Calder, Kirkstead, Vaudey, and Comber-
mere.

7 Pat. 18 Edw. I, m. 10, 8, 7d.; Close, 18
Edw. I, m. 3.

‘8 Pat. 19 Edw. I, m. 15.

9 Pat. 21 Edw. I, m. 12.

to cross the seas from July until Christmas for a
like cause.”

The Taxation Roll of 1291 gives the annual
income of the temporalities from the three
counties of Nottingham, Lincoln, and Derby as
£118 45.3 by far the largest part of this
(£110 55.) came from the county in which the
abbey was situated.”?_ The valuable church of
Rotherham is entered in the text of the MS. as
subdivided without any mention of Rufford, but
a variant reading states that it was appropriated
to the Abbot of Rufford tn totum.”

References to the woods by which the abbey
was surrounded occur with some frequency in
the rolls. Thus in 1300 the abbot and convent
obtained licence to sell the cablish or windfalls in
their woods, although they were within the metes
of the forest of Sherwood.* In 1323 the abbot
was licensed by Edward II to grant to Henry le
Scrop twelve oaks fit for timber in his wood
within the king’s forest of Sherwood, and for
the same Henry to fell them and carry them
away.4 Again, in 1328 Edward III licensed
the abbot to give twelve oaks from his wood to
John de Roos, who might fell them and take
them to his manor of Eakring.* In 1334 the
king licensed the same John de Roos to fell
and take away whither he will twelve living oaks
and twelve old oaks not bearing leaves given
him by the Abbot and convent of Rufford. An
indemnity was given so that they might not
hereafter be charged by the ministers of the forest
in respect of the same.”* John de Horton, who
had served the late king well and faithfully, was
sent by Edward II in 1307 to Rufford Abbey,
there to receive sustenance.” William le
Lound, king’s clerk, was licensed in the same
year to fell three oaks in the woods of the Abbot
of Rufford, and two in the woods of the Prior of
Newstead, respectively given him by the two
houses, and to take them wherever he will.”8

It would be tedious to continue enumerating
many like entries during the 14th century, but
perhaps an exception may be made in mention-
ing that in 1336 the abbot was licensed to
grant to Henry de Edwinstowe, king’s clerk,
trees out of his woods within the forest of
Sherwood, sufficient to make a hundred quarters
of charcoal.”

The references to the torest woods are fairly
frequent in the chartulary. The Abbot and
monks of Rufford claimed to cut and take green
wood in their wood within the regard of Sher-

Pat. 28 Edw. I, m. 11.

” Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 72, 262, 312.
” Thid, 2994, 300.

* Pat. 28 Edw. I, m. 15.

* Pat. 18 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 1.

** Pat. 2 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 20.

*° Pat. 8 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 16.

* Close, 1 Edw. II, m. 13 d.

* Pat. g Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 23.

* Pat. 10 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 23.

102

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

wood Forest for whatever was necessary for their
own use and for the use of all their granges both
within and without the forest, in return for ward-
ing the wood.”

In 1359 the abbot was charged with having
completely laid waste the wood of .Beskhall,
cutting down and selling the oaks over 20 acres
and 3 roods of land. It was pleaded that the
charters of Kings Edward I and Edward II sanc-
tioned this action, and the abbot obtained licence
to fell and sell to the extent of 40 acres. The
total receipts from the wood sale of 40 acres
amounted to just over £400, and the expenses to
£31"

An apparent outrage was participated in by
two of the monks of this house in 1317, as to
which we have only the statement of complaint.
On 10 December 1317 a commission was
appointed to inquire into the charge made against
Andrew le Botiller, Richard de Balderton, John
de Rodes, Thomas de Rodes, together with
Brother William Sausemer and Brother Thomas
de Nonyngton, monks of the house of Rufford,
of gathering to them a multitude of men and
seizing Thomas de Holme, as he was passing
between the abbey of Rufford and the grange of
Roewood (Rohagh), robbing him of his goods,
and taking him to some unknown place and
there detaining him until he should satisfy them
with a ransom of £200.”

Edward III in 1328 confirmed a grant of
Henry, former Abbot of Rufford, whereby Henry
de Shirley for life, at a rose rent, obtained their
grange of Brackenfield (Brithrichfeld), Derby-
shire, with the houses there, and the moiety of
the town of Brackenfield belonging to the grange
and certain common of pasture.*®

In 1331 a curious case from this abbey was
reserved to the pope. John XXII issued his
mandate to the Abbot of Rufford to grant a dis-
pensation to Thomas de Nonington, one of his
monks, touching the irregularity he had con-
tracted by having pointed out to a bailiff a thief,
who was taken and executed. The monk had
been appointed guardian of a manor and a town
belonging to the monastery ; one day, two years
before, being hailed ‘master,’ on entering the
town, a bailiff said that a thief, whom he was
following, had escaped him, and on the thief’s
clothes being described the monk identified him.*4

Licence was granted in mortmain in 1349,
at the request of the king’s yeoman John Braye,
for the abbey of Rufford to charge their lands
in the county of Nottingham with 12 marks
yearly for two chaplains, to wit 6 marks for one
in the parish church of Upton by Southwell, and
6 marks to another in the parish church of

® Harl. MS. 1063, fol. 4.

51 Tid. fol. 5, 6.

* Pat. 11 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 13d; pt. ii, m. 26d.
8 Pat. 2 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 30.

** Cal. of Papal Letters, ii, 369.

Newark, to celebrate divine service daily, as they
shall be ordained.*®

In 1331 licence was obtained at the request
of Henry de Edwinstowe, king’s clerk, for the
abbot and convent to appropriate a moiety of
the church of Rotherham which was of their
advowson.*®

Notification was made on the Patent Rolls on
5 June 1343, at the request of the Abbot of
Rufford, that by a certificate of the treasurer and
barons of the Exchequer it is shown that the farm
of the mediety of the church of Rotherham, of
which he was bound to pay yearly to the alien
Abbot of Clairvaux £20, was taken into the
king’s hands on 16 July 11 Edward TI on
account of the war with France, and that the
abbot has since paid the farm at the Exchequer.”
In November of the same year there is an entry
to the effect that although the king had lately
presented Richard de Wombewell, king’s clerk,
toa mediety of the church of Rotherham, be-
lieving the same to be void and in his gift, yet
because it has been found by inquisition that the
Abbot of Rufford long before the statute of mort-
main acquired from the Abbot of Clairvaux a
mediety of the church at a rent of £20, and
that the Abbot of Clairvaux previously held it
appropriated, the advowson of the same does not
belong to the king, and he has seen fit to revoke
the presentation.®®

Henry Beaumont, king’s esquire, obtained a
royal grant in August 1438, for the joint dura-
tion of his life and of the war with France, of
the annuity of £20 which the Abbot and Con-
vent of Rufford paid to the house of Clairvaux
in Burgundy; previously granted to Richard
Crecy, deceased, and then at the king’s disposal.*®
In the following October Beaumont obtained a
renewed grant of this annuity, as the previous
one was invalid on account of errors; this sum
of £20 a year wasa payment made by the Abbot
of Rufford to the king for the keeping of a
mediety of the church of Rotherham belonging
to the alien Abbot of Clairvaux.? In 1440
peace was made between England and France,
but the grant of this annuity was renewed
jointly to Beaumont and to two clerks his
nominees, buildings and divine service to be
maintained by the grantor; in this third grant
it is asserted that the grant of 1438 was in-
correct, as it did not belong to the Abbot of
Clairvaux.*}

A grant for life of £10 a year was made by
the Abbot and Convent of Rufford in 1461 to
one William Spencer, out of the church of

35 Pat.
86 Pat,
37 Pat.
38 Pat.

23 Edw. III, pt. ili, m. 12.
5 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 16.
16 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 35.
16 Edw. III, pt. iii, m. 15.
8° Pat. 16 Hen. VI, pt. ii, m. 15.
“ Ibid. 17 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 25.
" Tbid. 18 Hen. VI, pt. ii, m. 8.

103

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Rotherham. A second reference to this pen-
sion shows that it was in reality a grant by the
Crown out of the £20 paid by the abbey.**

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 gives the
gross income of the abbey as £254 6s. 8d. and
the clear annual value as £176 115. 6d. The
temporalities were spread over a large area, viz.
at Ompton, Babworth, Besthorpe, Bothamsall,
Boughton, Coddington, Eakring, East Retford,
Holme, Kelham, Kersall, Kirklington, Kirton,
Littleborough, Maplebeck, Nottingham, Ruf-
ford, Southwell, Staythorpe, Walesby, Warsop,
Welham, Willoughby, and Winkburn, Notts. ;
Abney, Brampton, Brackenfield, Chesterfield,
Palterton, and Shirebrook, Derbyshire; Aik-
borough and Barton upon Humber, Lincoln-
shire ; and Rotherham (£76 13s. 11d. clear) and
Penistone, Yorkshire. ‘The only spirituality was
the rectory of Rotherham, of the annual value of
£67 135. 4d.; but from this there were very
large deductions, the heaviest of which was a
pension of £36 135. 4d. to the dean and canons
of Windsor, bringing it down to the net income
of £23 65. 8d.

The monks had at this time granges at Kirk-
ton, at Parkleys in Kelham parish, at Babworth,
at Foxholes, at Roewood in Winkburn parish,
at Maplebeck, and at Abney in Derbyshire.

The abbey was visited in 1536 by those
notorious royal commissioners, Legh and Lay-
ton, who reported that there were six monks
guilty of disgraceful offences, and the abbot had
been incontinent with two married and four
single women. ‘They further stated that six of
the monks desired exemption from their vows.
Under the head of Superstitio it is recorded that
the abbey claimed to possess some of the Virgin’s
milk. The annual value was declared to be
£100 and the debts £20.

Abbot Doncaster obtained a pension on the
dissolution of the house among the lesser monas-
teries, of £25 a year ; but it was voided on his
speedy appointment to the rectory of Rotherham
on 2 July 1536. It is therefore absolutely
impossible to believe that any attention was
given to the slander of Legh and Layton.

George, Earl of Shrewsbury, in October 1537
obtained a grant in fee of the site, &c. of the
late abbey, with all the lordships, manors, mes-
suages, &c. in the counties of Nottingham,
York, and Derby, whereof Thomas Doncaster,
the late abbot, was seised in right of his monas-
tery.”

There is a sulphur cast of a fine impression in

*? Pat. 2 Edw. IV, pt. ii, m. 1.

* Pat. 4 Edw. IV, pt. i, m.16. The second half
of this £20 was soon afterwards granted to another of
the king’s courtiers.

4 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 171-3.

% TL. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 364.

Aug. Off. Bks. ccxxxii, 196.

Pat. 29 Hen. VIII, pt. i, m. to.

the British Museum of a 13th-century seal of an
Abbot of Rufford. The abbot stands on a plat-
form, with pastoral staff in the right hand and
book in the left. Legend :—

+ sIGILLUM : ABBATIS : RUFFORDIE *

Another abbot’s seal, c. 1260-70, bears an
eagle rising :—

+ AVE MARIA GRACI”

A third abbot’s seal, of the year 1349, bears
the Virgin and Child, with an abbot kneeling,
holding up a flowering branch :—

-++ MATER DEI MISERERE MEI

A counterseal of the year 1323, bearing a
dexter hand and vested arm holding a pastoral
staff ; in the field, on the left a crescent, on the
right a star.

SIGILL’ RUDFOIRD .. .°

ABBoTs OF RuFFOoRD

Philip de Kyme, temp. Stephen ™
Edward, occurs 1203 ®

Geoffrey, occurs temp. John, 1218, &c.%
Thomas *

Simon, occurs 1232 8

G—, occurs 1239”

Geoffrey, occurs 1252 ©

William, occurs 1259

Henry, 1278

Thomas de Stayngreve, occurs 1283 ©
Henry, occurs 1288 ©

Henry de Tring, occurs 1315 ©

Elias, occurs 1332 °

Robert de Mapelbek, 1352 “
Thomas, 1366 ©

John de Harlesay, 1372 ®

48 BLM. Seal Casts, Ixx, 55.

5 [bid. 48.

5? Dugdale, Mon. v, 126.
charter ; probably first abbot.

53 Harl. MS. 1063, fol. 28.

& Ibid. fol. 19, 20, 23.

55 Tbid. fol. 71.

57 Thid. fol. 864.

8 Harl. Chart. 112, F. 38.

sa At the general chapter in 1278 the Abbots of
Cogshall and Jervaulx, who had been appointed to
inquire into the recent election of an abbot at Ruf-
ford, reported that Henry, a monk of that house, had
been duly elected, but had been unduly rejected.
The chapter ordered that Henry should be accepted
as abbot. Martene, Thesaurus, iv, 1458.

6 Chart. R. 11 Edw. I, m. 6.

§ Pat. 16 Edw. I, m. 10.

® Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 11.

8 Harl. Chart. 112, F. 42.

* Harl. MS. 6971, fol. 161.

% Ibid. 6972, fol. 20

5! Ibid. 47.
Witness to a Pontefract

56 Ibid. fol. 26.
5 Ibid. fol. 72.

* Tbid.

104

RELIGIOUS
John de Farnsfeld, 1394 ©

Thomas Sewally, occurs 1400 8
Robert de Welles, 1421 ©
Robert Warthill, died 1456”
William Cresswell, 14567

HOUSES

John Pomfrat, died 1462
John Lilly, 146278

John Greyne, 1465

Roland Bliton, 1516 7°

Thomas Doncaster, last abbot 7

HOUSE OF CARTHUSIAN MONKS

5. THE PRIORY OF BEAUVALE

There is a fine register or chartulary of the
Carthusian Priory of Beauvale compiled by
Nicholas Wartre, who was prior of this house in
1486, which is in excellent preservation.! The
foundation charter herein set forth shows that
Nicholas de Cauntlow, lord of Ilkeston, Derby-
shire, obtained licence of Edward III in 1343
to found a monastery of the Carthusian order in
his park of Greasley for a prior and twelve monks,
endowing it with ro librates of land and annual
rents thereto pertaining in the townships of
Greasley and Selston, together with the park of
Greasley and the advowson of the churches of
Greasley and Selston. ‘The charter recites that
the founder did this for the glory of God and of
the Virgin and of All Saints, for the furtherance of
divine worship, and for the good estate of the
king, of Archbishop Zouch, his most dear lord
and cousin, of the Earl of Derby, of himself and
his wife Joan, and William his son and heir, and
of their souls when they should die, and also for
all his progenitors and heirs. He gave the
monastery that he had built (called Pulchra
Vallis or Beauvale) in his park to God and the
Holy Trinity, and to the prior and monks of
the Carthusian order and their successors, together
with 300 acres of land, 10 messuages, and 12
bovates in Greasley, and 13 messuages and 174
bovates in Selston, with the villeins who held
these lands in villeinage, and the advowson of
the two churches. He further granted to the
monks common of pasture for all manner of
cattle throughout his demesnes, together with
the rights of quarrying stone for their buildings,
and taking marl to marl their lands in all the
said places with the exception of his park of
Kirkstall.

This charter was witnessed at Greasley on
9 December 1343 by an imposing company which
included the Archbishop of York, the Bishops

* Harl. MS. fol. 23. * Ibid. 1063, fol. 884.

® Tbid. 6972, fol. 24.

7 Thid. fol. 30.

Tbid. fol. 31.

™ Thid. fol. 34.

Ibid. fol. 45.

"© Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 171.

1 Add. MS. 6060, 122 parchment folios. This is
the register cited by Dugdale ; it was given to the
British Museum by the Rev. T. L. Cursham, vicar of
Mansfield, in 1814.

7 Thid.
3 Ibid.

105

of Durham, Lincoln, and Lichfield, the Earls of
Derby, Northampton, and Huntingdon, Sir John
de Grey, Sir William Deincourt and Sir William
de Grey of Sandiacre, knights, William son and
heir of the founder, and William’s son Nicholas,
Another charter, to the like effect but in shorter
terms, was sealed at the same time and place and
witnessed by several knights of the district.”

In the year 1347, on 20 October, at Greasley,
a further deed was executed, witnessed by the
same bishops and earls, to the effect that Nicholas
de Cauntlow and his heir gave additional lands
and rents to the value of £20 per annum to the
monastery in the towns of Selston, Watnall,
Kinmark,? and Newthorpe.* Another early
benefaction was the advowson of the church of
Farnham, with an acre of land, by Sir William
Malbis and others in 1344.5

Nicholas de Cauntlow the founder died in
1355, and there is entered in the chartulary a
detailed account of the descent of his Derbyshire
lands from the time of the Conquest.®

Hugh de Cressy of Selston and Cecilia his
wife assigned to the priory in 1360 all their
lands and tenements in Kimberley and New-
thorpe, on condition of Hugh receiving from
the priory £7 ros. during his life, and Cecilia
£4 11s. if she survived him.’

Sir William de Aldburgh, for the soul of his lord
Edward Baliol, King of Scotland, and for the
soul of Elizabeth his wife, and for others his
near kinsfolk, did in 1362 grant to the priory of
Beauvale the hay of Willey in Sherwood. In
the succeeding reign (18 Richard II) a chantry
was founded in the conventual church for two
of the monks to say mass for the souls of William
de Aldburgh and Edward Baliol. The founders
of this chantry were Isabel wife of Sir William
de Ryther, and Elizabeth wife of Sir Brian
Stapleton, who were the sisters of William de
Aldburgh ; each of them granted 4os. a year
out of her respective moiety of the manors of
Kirkby Overblow (Yorkshire) ® and ‘ Kereby.’ ®

* Ibid. fol. 17-19.

’ Probably Kimberley, Notts. (? Kynmarl). The
Domesday form of the name is Chinemarelie, and the
priory possessed tenements there at the Dissolution.

* Add. MS. 6060, fol. 19, 20. * Ibid. fol. 22, 23.

6 Tbid. fol. 28 ; it is set forth at length in Dugdale,
Mon. vi, 13-14.

7 Add. MS. 6060, fol. 32.

8 Ibid. fol. 35-8.

® Not identified, as the grant specifies no county.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

The chartulary sets forth with much detail
copies of title deeds referring to bequests of land
in Selston, Wandesley in Bagthorpe, Brinsley,
Hucknall Torkard, Newthorpe, Cressy Fee,
Watnall Chaworth, Brook, and Willey, all in
Nottinghamshire.”

One of the most important of these grants was
that of the manor of Etwall, Derbyshire. Sir
William de Finchenden, kt., Richard de Ravenser,
Archdeacon of Lincoln, and Nicholas de Chad-
desden, Richard de Chesterfield, and Richard de
Tissington, clerks, obtained licence from Ed-
ward III to grant this manor to Beauvale Priory
(soon after its foundation), to pray for Sir William
whilst living, and for his soul and that of his
wife Blanche after death.)

Some forty folios are occupied with the setting
out of the various papal privileges enjoyed by the
priory. By far the greater part of these were
common to the whole Carthusian order ; but the
bull of Clement VI names and confirms the
special liberties granted to Beauvale on_ its
foundation.”

The chartulary concludes with the setting
forth in full of the various documents relative to
the appropriation of churches to this monastery.
The archiepiscopal and royal assent of the appro-
priation of the churches of Greasley and Selston
were obtained at the time of the first foundation
of the house; 2 marks out of the rectory of
Greasley and 1 mark out of the rectory of Selston
wereassigned as pensions tosuccessive Archbishops
of York, and 20s. and Ios. respectively to the
Dean and Chapter of York. In the following
year (1344) the resignation of the rectors of both
Greasley and Selston was secured, and they were
at once presented to medieties of the rectory of
the churchof East Keal, Lincolnshire. Vicarages
were duly ordained for both parishes. In the
case of Greasley a vicarage house was to be built,
adjoining the church, on an area of 180 ft. by
100 ft.; the vicar was to receive all mortuaries
and oblations, together with all small tithes
valued at {10 a year, and the priory was to find
bread, wine, lights for the high altar, and a parish
chaplain or curate. The Selston vicar was to
have a house on the king’s highway, near the
church, having an area of 154 ft. by 140 ft., and
the mortuaries and oblations and the tithes of
wool and lambs and all other small tithes of the
value, according to inquisition, of 6 marks or £4.

The church of Farnham was appropriated in
1355, the archbishop securing a pension of
6s. 8d., and the dean and chapter 3s. 4d. The
vicarage house was to include a hall, two suitable
chambers, a kitchen, a stable, a bakehouse, and

a barn for grain and hay."

At the beginning of the chartulary are tran-
scripts of ten royal charters, confirming the

10 Add MS. 6060, fol. 39, &c. —'"' [bid. fol. 55-9.
® Tbid. fol. 77-91, 104-22. _ '* Ibid. fol. g2—-103.
4 Tbid. fol. ro1—3 ; Harl. MS. 6971, fol. 1134.

various benefactions afterwards recited. On the
last folio, in a cursory hand, is the statement
that this chartulary, compiled through the in-
dustry of Nicholas Wartre, recently prior of the
house, extends from the foundation up to the
year 1486 ; prayers are asked for the good estate
of Nicholas during his life and for his soul after
death. :

There are various deeds at the Public Record
Office relative to this priory ; the most interest-
ing are the four here briefly cited :—

1. A licence by John de Grey, lord of Cod-
dington, in 1358, to Robert Bernow and William
Braydeston to grant to the Prior and Convent of
Beauvale the manor of Kimberley with its ap-
purtenances./®

2. A mining lease granted by the priory in
1397 to William Monyash of Costall and others
of a coal mine in ‘ Kyrkestallavnd.’ ”

3. Release in 1404 by John Prior of St. Fre-
mond, Normandy, to William Prior of Beauvale
of all rights in the priory of Bonby, Lincoln
diocese.®

4. Confirmation in 1462 by John Day, vicar of
Selston and others, of the grant of a ninety-nine
years’ lease to the priory made by the late William
Arnalde (in 1457) of all coal and right of digging
for the same in Selston parish, and of all wood
growing there to make ‘punches and proppes,’
paying 13s. 4d. a year so long as they obtain
coal. ;

There are numerous records of grants to this
priory on the Patent Rolls of Edward III; but
they need not be cited, as they refer to matters
of which particulars are given in the chartulary.

In 1403 Henry IV granted to this house the
alien priory of Bonby, Lincolnshire, with its
advowsons, lands, rents, and services not exceed-
ing the annual value of 18 marks. The Prior
and Convent of St. Fremond, of which it was a
cell, had granted Bonby (without licence) to the
London house of Carthusians in 1390, but at
that time Bonby was in the hands of Richard II
on account of the war with France, and _ there-
fore that grant was void. “The possessions of
Bonby included the rectory of the parish church

of that place, pensions of 13s. 4d. each from the
churches of Saxby and St. John’s Stamford, and
the advowsons of the churches of Sts. Peter,
John, Paul, and George, Stamford, and Saxby
and Grafton.”

There is a highly interesting document extant
dated 7 February 1422, whereby Dom Richard
de Burton, Prior of Beauvale, covenants with
Brother John de Bedysdale, of the Derby Do-

% Prior Nicholas is named in two deeds of 1486
and 1489 ; Anct. D. (P.R.O.), B. 81, 2165.

6 Anct. D. (P.R.O.), B. 1711.

1 Thid. 1782 ; Kirkstall, Yorks.

18 Thid. 480. © Tbid. 3217.

* Pat. 4 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 31, 3; Anct. D., B.
480.

106

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

minicans, prior provincial of that order, for an
intercommunion of prayers and devotions be-
tween the Carthusians and Dominicans, both in
life and in death.”

Edward IV in 1462 granted to the Prior and
Convent of Beauvale 24 marks yearly from the
customs of the port of Kingston on Hull, in
exchange for a grant of two tuns of the better
red wine of Gascony at this port at All Saints
tide, which had been made by Edward III. But
in 1465 the charge of 24 marks a year on the
Hull customs was exchanged for the like charge
on the fee farm and increment on the town of
Derby at the hands of the men or bailiffs of that
town.”

The Valor Ecclestasticus of 1534 gave the
annual value of this priory as £227 8s., and the
clear value £196 6s. The appropriated churches
at that time were those of Greasley and Selston,

F Nottinghamshire ; Farnham, Yorkshire ; Bonby
and a pension from St. John’s Stamford, Lin-
colnshire. The temporalities were chiefly in
Nottinghamshire, but there was an income of
£12 13s. 4d. from Etwall, Derbyshire, in ad-
dition to the £16 from the town of Derby.
Among the outgoings was the payment of
275. 4d.a year to Sir John Chaworth for the
passage of coal over his lands.”

Maurice Chauncey’s beautiful and pathetic
account of the last days of the English Carthu-
sians, who were practically unanimous in reject-
ing the supremacy of Henry VIII in matters
ecclesiastical, makes special mention of the part
taken by the superior of this Nottinghamshire
house.* Soon after the king’s new title of
‘Supreme Head’ had been formally adopted by
the council, early in 1535, Robert Lawrence, the
Prior of Beauvale, and Augustine Webster, Prior
of Axholme, came to visit and consult with their
brethren at the London Charterhouse. Lawrence
had been a member of the London house, and
had been transferred to Beauvale as its superior
at the time, five years previously, when John
Houghton, Prior of Beauvale, was summoned to
take charge of the mother house of the English
province. ‘The three priors determined to fore-
stall the visitations of the royal commissioners,
and sought a personal interview with Cromwell ;
but the Lord Privy Seal, on learning the purport
of their visit, refused to listen to any pleadings,
and at once sent them from his house to the
Tower as rebellious traitors.

A week later, namely on 20 April, the priors
were interrogated before Cromwell, when they
stoutly refused to take the oath of supremacy and

| Eccl. Doc. K.R. bdle. 6, no. 47.

” Pat. 1 Edw. IV, pt. iv, m. 23; pt. vi, m. 36;
5 Edw. IV, pt. i, m. 13.

® Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 156.

™ Chauncey, Commentariolus de vitae ratione et mar-
tyris Cartusianorum, largely cited and translated by
Froude, Hist. ii, chap. 9.

reject the authority of anyone except the king
over the Church of England. Whilst in
prison the three superiors were again closely
examined ; the depositions record their several
opinions in much the same language. ‘The
Prior of Beauvale declared that he could ‘not
take our sovereign lord to be supreme head of
the Church, but him that is by God the head of
the Church, that is the bishop of Rome, as
Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine teach.’ **

Thereupon a special commission was appointed
to try these three Carthusians, as well as a Brigit-
tine monk of Syon who had been imprisoned on
a like charge. On 26 April they underwent
another examination in the Tower by Cromwell
and other members of the Privy Council. On
28 April they were indicted before a jury on the
charge of openly stating on the 26th that the
king was ‘not supreme head in earth of the
Church of England.’ Lawrence and his three
companions pleaded not guilty to the novel
charge of verbal treason. The verdict of the
jury was deferred till the following day.””

The jury were unable to agree to condemn
the four accused, notwithstanding the all-em-
bracing nature of the statute, on the ground
that they did not act ‘ maliciously.’ The judges,
however, instructed them that whoever denied
the supremacy, did so ‘ maliciously,’ and that the
use of that word in the Act was ‘a void limit
and restraint of the construction of the words
and intention of the offence.’ On the jury still
refusing to condemn them, Cromwell used vio-
lent threats against them, with the result that at
last they found them guilty and received great
thanks ; ‘but they weve afterwards ashamed to
show their faces, and some of them took great
[harm] from it.’

The prisoners were condemned to death and
conducted back to the Tower. On 4 May
Prior Lawrence of Beauvale, with his two fellow
priors, as well as the Brigittine father and John
Hale, vicar of Isleworth, were done to death at
Tyburn, in the midst of a vast crowd, among
whom werea great number of lordsand courtiers.
The condemned were all drawn to the place of
execution in their respective habits, and every-
thing seems to have been arranged to make their
death an awful example of the king’s power over
the religious and ecclesiastics of his realm. To
each of the victims, as he mounted the scaffold,
a pardon was offered if he would accept Henry
as supreme head of the Church, but all rejected
the offer. The details of the execution were
even more ghastly and revolting than was usual .

* T.and P. Hen. VILL, viii, 565 (1).

” Dep. Keeper's Rep. iii, App. ii, 238.

8 Arundel MSS. clii, fol. 308 Froude doubts
Cromwell’s threats to the jury, but Chauncey gives a
similar account. See the whole story of the treat-
ment of the Carthusidhis in Gasquet, Hen. VIII and
the Engl. Mon. i, chap. vi.

107

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

in executions for high treason. The cords used
for the preliminary hanging were especially stout
and heavy, in order to avoid the possibility of
fatal strangling before the subsequent butchery
could beachieved. Whilst life was still in them,
they were ripped up in each other’s presence,
their bodies obscenely mutilated, their hearts
‘cut out and rubbed into their mouths and faces,’
and all this before the process of quartering was
begun.”

Meanwhile the Carthusians of the mother
house were treated with either blandishments or
terrible threats in order to secure by any possible
means their yielding to acknowledgement of the
supremacy. ‘The more obstinate of them were
placed in prison, either in the Tower or in New-
gate, heavily chained upright to posts under cir-
cumstances of diabolical cruelty. No wonder
that under such a punishment several of them
died. Weneed not be surprised that the general
determination of the Carthusians to be true to
their original vows gave way in not a few cases.
A new prior was required to take the place in
London of the martyred Houghton, who, it will
be remembered, came from Beauvale. It was
another monk of Beauvale, William Trafford,
who was selected by Cromwell to fill the place.
How he came to give way and submit to be thus
cajoled cannot now be explained. The truer-
hearted of the London Carthusians quietly re-
sented his intrusion. Chauncey (being himself,
as he acknowledges, one of the partial time-
servers) says of Traftord’s brief period of adminis-
tration that ‘ being deprived of a prior exterior to
ourselves, every man’s conscience was his prior.’

Trafford’s submission is the more remarkable
as he had been singularly bold in proclaiming his

refusal to acknowledge the supremacy when
Sir John Markham and other special commis-
sioners visited Beauvale to ‘take the value.’
Trafford, as proctor of the convent, was then in
charge, for the prior was in safe custody in the
Tower, awaiting his trial. Addressing Markham
on this occasion the proctor said, ‘I believe
firmly that the Pope of Rome is supreme head
of the Church Catholic.” On the commissioners
asking him if he would abide by his words, he
replied ‘ Usquead mortem.’ Healso went so far
as tocommit his words to writing, and Markham
carried the paper away and left the monk to the
special custody of the sheriff of the county.”

The clear annual value of this Carthusian
monastery was just under the £200 which was
the limit for the suppression of the lesser monas-
teries; but by paying the heavy fine of
£166 135. 4d. the monks of Beauvale obtained

the doubtful privilege of deferring the evil day
of their dissolution. This bargain was effected
on 2 January 1537-8. Thomas Woodcock

® S.P. Spanish, v, 452-3, 474, 517, 521, 539.
80 7. and P. Hen. VIII, viii, 560.

51 Thid. xiii (3), 457.

had been appointed prior by the Crown on
16 December 1537.”

The surrender of this house, and of all its
possessions in the counties of Nottingham, Lin-
coln, and Derby, took place on 18 July 1539.
It received the signatures of Thomas Woodcock,
prior, and of seven other monks, John Langdale,
William Welles, Alexander Lowthe, Edmund
Garner, Robert Gowton (proctor), Thomas
Leyghton, and Thomas Wallis. ‘The surrender
was delivered to Dr. London, the king’s commis-
sioner, in the chapter-house.*

London, writing from Nottingham on 24 July,
certified that he had granted the following pen-
sions to the ‘Charterhouse of Bew Vale’ :—
Thomas Woodcock, prior, £26 135. 4d. ; John
Langford, £6; W. Welles, A. Lowthe, E.
Garnett, and R. Gowton, £5 65. 8d. each;
Nicholas Dookmer, T. Leyghton, and Thomas
Wallis, £5 each. In addition to these, 4os.
each was assigned to two lay brothers, Richard
Wakefield and Richard Bynde, described as
‘converse and aged men.’ *

In another letter from London, dated 27 July
and addressed to Cromwell, he tells the Lord
Privy Seal that on visiting Beauvale for the sur-
render he found the prior in short gown and
velvet cap ready for their coming, and the
proctor of the house in like apparel next day.®
Woodcock was evidently one of those time-
serving monks chosen by Cromwell to be prior,
to serve his own ends.

With regard to the eventual fate of the sur-
viving Carthusians of Beauvale, we know of the
survival of one till old age. Nicholas Dugmer
(or Dookmer), a Beauvale monk, who eventually
followed Prior Chauncey across the seas, died on
10 December 1575.

The manor of Etwall was granted by the
Crown to Sir John Porte in 1540; but the
site of the priory and the rest of its possessions
in 1541 to Sir William Huse of London.*8

There is a sulphur cast of an impression of
the original seal of this priory at the British
Museum. It represents Our Lord seated in a
canopied niche, with cruciform nimbus, lifting
up the right hand in benediction, and holding
in the left hand an orb surmounted by along

cross. At the base a monk kneels in prayer
under a round-headed arch. Legend :—
S$ : COMUNE : DOMUS : BELLE : VALL’ :
ORD’ : CAR. .

% Pat. 28 Hen. VIII, pt. iv, m. 17.

3 Rymer, Foedera, xiv, 660; Dep. Keepers Rep.
vill, App. il, 9.

* 1. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (1), 1313.

3 Ibid. 1323.

% Gasquet, Hen. VIII and the Engl. Mon. ii, 486.

37 Pat. 31 Hen. VIII, pt. v, m. 17.

3% Pat. 33 Hen. VIII, pt. viii, m. 25-7.

8° Casts of Seals, lxx, 33.

108

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Priors OF BEAUVALE

William, occurs 1404 *°

B—, occurs 1412

Richard de Burton, occurs 1422, 1426”
Thomas Metheley, occurs 1468 *

HOUSES

6. THE PRIORY OF FELLEY

Ralph Britto of Annesley founded the priory of
Felley in the year 1156, giving to Austin Canons
the church and hermitage of Felley. Reginald
de Annesley, son of Ralph, confirmed his father’s
gifts, and that of the church of Annesley, and
rents to sustain a lamp burning at all service
hours in that church. But in 1151, according
to a Worksop register, Ralph and Reginald had
granted the church of Felley to the priory church
of Worksop. Hence the older priory claimed
the subjection of Prior Walter and the canons of
Felley ; Pope Alexander III by bull of 1161
confirmed Felley to Worksop Priory. Con-
sequently it remained subject to Worksop until
the year 1260."

A chartulary of this priory, written early in
the 16th century, came into the possession of the
British Museum in 1903.? It consists of 141
vellum folios of 4to shape, carefully written with
rubricated initials. In the centre of the first folio
the title is given as ‘The Booke of Felley Called
the Domesday.’

The foundation charter of Ralph Britto of
Annesley (fol. 245) was mutilated at an early
date ; only the opening clause remains, stating
that by this charter he confirms to God, the
Blessed Mary, and St. Helen, and to Brother
Robert the hermit and his successors, his place
of Felley with its appurtenances in pure and
perpetual alms.

A bull of confirmation issued by Pope Celes-
tine III (1191—8) gives various particulars as to
the early benefactions to the Austin Canons of St.
Mary of Felley, including the church of Annesley
by Ralph de Annesley ; Bradley with the site of
the mill ; lands in Nottinghamshire, by Serlo de
Plesley ; an acre of land and 15d. in rents at
Chesterfield, by William Britton ; and a variety
of parcels of lands at Newark, Colwick, South-
well, and other places in the county. This bull

® Anct. D. (P.R.O.), B. 480.

“Ibid. B. 219.

“Eccl. Doc. K.R. bdle. 6, no. 47; Anct. D.
(P.R.O.), B. 355.

* Wolley Chart. vii, 15.

“ Willis, Mitred Abbeys, ii, 167.

* Tbid.

“" S.P. Spanish v, 45.

8 Rymer, Foedera, xiv, 660.

John Swift, occurs 1478 “

Thomas Wydder, occurs 1482"
Nicholas Wartre, occurs 1486 *°

Robert Lawrence, executed 1535 “”
Thomas Woodcock, surrendered 1539 *

OF AUSTIN CANONS

gave the priory the right to say mass in a low
voice during a general interdict, but with doors
shut and without sound of a bell; and also
permission to bury those who might devoutly
desire sepulture there, unless they were excom-
municate.?

This is followed in the chartulary by a bull of
Gregory IX (1227-41) making like confirma-
tions, and by other letters of the same pope in
the 6th, 7th, and roth years of his pontificate.*

The chartulary contains a transcript of a highly
interesting and exceptional document, which
makes mentions of a variety of the early grants
to the house. On 6 May 1311 the prior and
canons of Felley appeared in the collegiate church
of Southwell before the official of the Archdeacon
of Nottingham, requesting that their ancient
evidences might be publicly recorded whilst they
were yet perfect. Thereupon the official cited
them to appear in the church of St. Mary’s,
Nottingham, on the day after Ascension Day,
when there was produced a writing with a seal
of very old white wax dependent, the impression
of a woman holding her right hand on her right
side, and carrying a bird on her outstretched left
hand, with the marginal legend Siggil/um Leonie de
Raines, The tenor of tne writing was to the effect
that Leonia de Raines, and Henry de Stutivill
her son and heir, gave the church of Annesley
to God and the Blessed Mary of Felley, and the
canons there serving God, for the health of King
Henry and Robert de Stutivill, and her and
their ancestors ; for which they were to find a
canon tocelebrate daily. A second writing pro-
duced had a seal of white wax, the impression
being a lion passant, and the legend Sigillum
Reynaldi de Annesley ; this was the grant made
by the latter, at the request of his father Ralph,
of all right of patronage in the church of Annes-
ley to the house of Felley. A third writing had
the seal in old green wax of a bishop in _ his
pontificals with pastoral staff in left hand, and

' Thoroton, Notts. ii, 266, 271 ; Dugdale, Mon.
vi, 125-6.

* Add. MS. 36872. It was purchased at Sotheby’s
on 24 Oct. This chartulary is not referred to by
Dugdale, but Tanner mentions it as in the posses-
sion of Gilbert Millington, whose name appears on a
fly-leaf at the end, with the date 1690. The site of
the priory was granted by James I in the first year of
his reign to Anthony Millington.

5 Tbid. fol. 4, 5. * Ibid. fol. 6-10.

109

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

right hand raised in benediction, with the legend
Sigillum Gaufridi Dei gracia Ebor. Archiepi. ; the
tenor of this was that Archbishop Geoffrey see-
ing the controversy between Leonia de Raines,
Reginald de Annesley, and Hugh, rector of
Kirkby in Ashfield, concerning the church of
Annesley, it was appeased in his presence by all
of them giving up their respective rights to the
canons of Felley, and he hereby confirmed it to
them for their own proper uses, The letters
apostolical of Celestine III were also produced
with the leaden bull attached by a silken string.®

Possibly other sealed charters and grants were
at the same time produced, but these are the
only ones solemnly recorded, with the nature of
their seals fully described ; the reason being that
they all four related to possible disputes that
might arise with regard to the church of Annes-
ley. It was this fear that brought about the
display of the ancient writings before the diocesan
official, as is clear from the fact that Sir John de
Annesley, Lord of Annesley, Thomas, rector of
Kirkby-in Ashfield, and William de Manthorp,
a priest of Lincoln diocese, were summoned to
St. Mary’s, Nottingham, as those ‘ whom the
matter chiefly concerned,’ to show cause, if they
had any, of canonical impediment; but none
of them appeared.

The following are among the more important
of the early grants to this house which appear in
the chartulary :—

Ivo de Heriz gave to William de Lovetot,
Prior of Felley, and to his convent, 20 acres of
land in Ogston and Brackenfield, co. Derby
(temp. Henry II). At a somewhat later date,
John de Heriz, for the health of his soul and
that of Sarah his wife, gave 18 bovates of land
at Tibshelf, Derbyshire, to sustain two canons
daily celebrating in the church of Felley for ever.’

Another early grant was that made by Serlo
de Plesley, lord of Ashover, who died about
1203. Serlo confirmed to the canons of Felley
4 bovates of land at ‘ Ulneseys,’ and also gave
them 16acres of the land of Geoffrey the Hunter,
together with pasture for 100 sheep and for 10
cows and a bull. Serlo states that he had already
been permitted to enter into fraternity with the
canons, and desired to be buried with them.®

An important 13th-century Nottinghamshire
grant to the priory is that by Geoffrey Barry of
lands at Whiteborough, in Teversal parish, on
behalf of himself, Alice his wife, and their
ancestors and successors for daily mass at the altar
of St. Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, within
the priory church. This undated charter could
not have been earlier than 1248, the year of
St. Edmund’s canonization.

5 Add. MS. 36872, fol. 33, &c. An English tran-
script of this long document is given in Thoroton,
Notts. il, 271-3.

® Ibid. fol. go.

8 Thid. fol. 95.

” Ibid. fol. 85.
° Ibid. fol. 113-14.

In the year 1260 the subjection of the priory
of Felley to that of Worksop, which involved an
annual tribute of 10s. to the older house, as well
as a variety of technical submissions such as the
consent of Worksop to the election of a prior by
the canons of Felley, came to an end. John, the
Prior of Worksop, in March of that year, with
the assent and advice of Archbishop Geoffrey,
sealed in the chapter-house of Worksop an agree-
ment by which, on the part of his convent, he
released to Prior Henry of Felley and his suc-
cessors all claim to recognition and obedience of
any kind, in consideration of Felley covenanting
to pay to Worksop a yearly rental of 20s. There
had been much litigation for some time past
between the two houses, and this covenant of
peace was evidently considered one of moment.
‘The witnesses included the Archbishop of York,
the Abbots of Rufford and Welbeck, the Priors
of St. Oswald (i.e. Nostell), Thurgarton, New-
stead, and Shelford, and Richard de Sutton,
canon of Southwell.’

In 1268 Geoffrey de Langley, for the souls
of himself and of his children, and of his two
wives, Christina and Matilda, gave to God,
St. Mary, and Sir Ralph, Prior of Felley, and the
canons there, all that he had in Ashover (Derby-
shire), namely ‘ Peynstonhurst’ and ‘ William-
feld,’ on condition that his name and the names
of his wives and ancestors and successors were
daily recited in the mass for benefactors, also
that his obit was to be kept like that of a prior,
and that on that day thirteen poor people should
be fed, each receiving a white loaf, a gallon of
the better beer, and half a dish of meat. He
also enjoined that another mass should be cele-
brated on the obit of his wife Matilda (which
was kept on the day of the Translation of
St. Benedict), and that on that day five poor peo-
ple were to be fed after a like fashion.”

_ In 1279 Sir Geoffrey de Dethick assigned lands
to Thomas, Prior of Felley, on condition of the
priory maintaining a chaplain to celebrate daily
in the chapel of Dethick, Derbyshire, for himself
and all his ancestors and progenitors.” One of
the witnesses to this charter was Simon, rector
of Ashover.13 By an undated letter of Arch-
bishop Giffard to the Prior and Convent of Felley,
apparently about 1266, instructions were given,
couched in most devout scriptural phraseology,
for the readmission of Robert Barry, an apostate
brother.1*

In 1276 the process of election of a Prior of
Felley, after the deposition of Ralph de Pleasley,
is set forth in Giffard’s register at some length in
a letter asking for his confirmation. Episcopal
licence to elect was read in the chapter-house on
10 July. On the morrow, after solemn cele-

Tbid. fol. 1304-14, 1 Tbid. fol. gt.
™ Cox, Ch. of Derb. i, 462-3.

3 Add. MS. 36872, fol. 126.

™ York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 86.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

bration of Lady Mass, the chapter-house was
entered, and after singing the Veni Creator the
method of lection was discussed. At length

_the canons decided to proceed by way of scrutiny,

when it was found that all had voted for Thomas
de Wathenowe, one of the canons. On Thomas
giving his assent, he was conducted before the
high altar with chanting of the Te Deum and
ringing of the bells, After prostrating himself
in prayer, the prior-elect was then led to the
altar itself, which he kissed. The archbishop’s
assent was humbly asked, and Giffard, who was
then stopping at Southwell, made formal con-
firmation of the election on 13 July.

Felley had been personally visited by Giffard on
9 July. The visitation resulted in the deposition
of Prior Ralph de Pleasley for various irregulari-
ties, in the confining of Ralph de Codnore to the
cloister for incontinence, and in the infliction of
a like punishment on Robert Barry and William
de Dunham for theft and immorality. The
charges against the prior were not quite so grave,
but by his own confession and by the sworn
testimony of others he was convicted of suffering
the goods of the house to be wasted, and the
house itself to become dilapidated ; of laying
violent hands on Alan, one of the canons; of
breaking open a lock against the will of the con-
vent; and of neglecting to correct in chapter.

He was also found to be insufficient for the posi-
tion on account of weakness and old age.”®

The Taxation Roll of 1291 enters the appro-
priated church of Annesley as of the annual
value of £5 6s. 8d. the temporalities in the arch-
deaconry of Nottinghamshire £4 15s., and tem-
poralities at Pleasley, Derbyshire, 20s. ; giving a
total taxable income of {11 15. 8d."°

The Valr Ecclesiasticus of 1534 shows a
considerable increase in the income of this small
house. The gross annual value is declared at
£61 45. 8d., and the clear value at £40 19s. 1d.
The spiritualities comprised the rectories of Annes-
ley (£4 18s.) and Attenborough (£15 125. 10d.),
with a portion of 6s. from Cossall. The tem-
poralities included rents, &c., from the Notting-
hamshire parishes of Attenborough, Awsworth,
Annesley, Bunny, Bramcote, Kirkby in Ashfield,
Hucknall Torkard, Nottingham, Selston, Toton,
Teversal,and Woodborough, and from the Derby-
shire townships of Ashover, Houghton, and Tib-
shelf. The heaviest outgoings were £6 135. 4d.
out of the church of Attenborough as a pension
to Lenton Priory, and £4 to a chantry priest in
the church of Mansfield Woodhouse.”

Another curious testimony as to the value of
seals occurred in 1290 with regard to this house.
The seal of the letters patent of Henry II secur-
ing to the canons of Felley exemption from all

*® York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 188, 142.
18 Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 2644, 310, 312,

339.
Valr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 155.

toll and custom throughout England on their own
goods which they sold or which they bought for
their own use, and forbidding any person disturb-
ing them on this account under pain of £10, had
been broken. The opportunity was therefore
taken on 17 October, when Edward I was at
Clipston, of securing an inspeximus and exem-
plification of this grant."* In 1305 the latter
king granted to the prior and canons all the
tithes of assarts within the hays of Lindeby,
Rumwood, and Willey, within the Forest of
Sherwood, which had been assarted within the
king’s reign, as appropriated to their church.”

Licence was obtained from the Crown in 1323
to permit the Prior and Convent of Felley to
acquire in mortmain lands and rents to the value
of 100s. a year, for the maintenance of a chaplain
to celebrate divine service daily in the church of
their house for the souls of the faithful departed.”
In 1339 licence was granted for the alienation in
mortmain by Sir John de Grey of Codnor to
this priory (in full satisfaction of the 100s. a year
which they had the licence of Edward II to
acquire) of the reversion of an acre of land in
Toton, and the advowson of the church of
Attenborough—now held for life by Thomas de
Vaus—of the yearly value of 60s. 2d.”

In 1339 John, Prior of Felley, covenanted
with Robert Stuffyne of Newark and Alice his
wife to find 6 marks annually to maintain a
chantry priest at the altar of the Blessed Virgin
in the church or chapel of Mansfield Wood-
house.”

There was an old dispute of long standing
between Henry Lord Grey and the Prior and
Convent of Lenton as to the advowson of a
moiety of the church of Attenborough, which
was settled by Archbishop Walter Gray in 1246,
when it was arranged that the priory should
have tithes to the value of 40s. yearly out of
Bramcote chapelry in that parish, and that the
other mediety should remain in the gift of
Richard Lord Grey and his heirs. In 1340
John de Grey of Codnor granted the Grey
moiety to the priory of Felley, and in 1343
this rectory was appropriated to the priory. The
appropriation was confirmed in a long document
by Archbishop William de la Zouch, with the
consent of the Dean and Chapter of York, under
date 11 March 1343, securing to himself and
his successors a pension of 20s. 8d. and of 205. to
the Dean and Chapter.”

8 Pat. 18 Edw. I, m. 6.

” Pat. 33 Edw. I, pt. i, m. 6.

Pat. 17 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 8. Transcripts of
several letters patent affecting Felley, granted by
Edward I and Edward II, appear in the chartulary
immediately after the papal bulls ; fol. 10d-14.

| Pat. 13 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 36.

”® Add. MS. 36872, fol. 122-5.

3 All this is set forth in full, reciting the previous
settlement of 1246, in the chartulary ; fol. 15-23.

Ill

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

The consent of Edward III to the appropria-
tion was obtained on 9 May of the same year ;*
and in June of the following year the arch-
bishop made a formal ordination of the vicaraze.*

An indenture made in April 1504 between
Laurence, Prior of Felley, with his convent, and
John Vyncent of Braithwell, Yorkshire, is given
in English in the chartulary. It recites that there
had been ‘diverse variaunces and contraversies’
between the two parties with regard to certain
lands and tithes of the said John in Braithwell,
but that by the mediation of Robert, Prior of
Worksop, and Robert Henryson, the said parties
had come to an agreement.”

This small priory was visited in 1536 by
the commissioners, Legh and Layton ; but they
merely reported that the annual income was
£40 and that the debts amounted to a like sum.

Christopher Bolton, the last prior of this small
house, was granted a pension of £6 a year on its
dissolution. ‘This pension was cancelled on 2 July
28 Hen. VIII, when Bolton was appointed to the
rectory of Attenborough, Nottinghamshire.”

In 1536-7 the possessions of this priory,
dissolved under the Act for the confiscation of
the lesser houses, passed into various hands ;
Richard Samond obtained the lease from the
Crown of the rectory of Annesley for twenty-
one years at 106s. 8d. annual rent, and grants
were made of other parcels to different officials of
the royal household. In September 1538
William Bolles, areceiver of the Court of Augmen-
tation, and Lucy his wife obtained a grant in fee
simple of the house and site of the late priory, with
the whole of its lands in Felley and Annesley, of
the clear annual value of £13,” to be held in
the same way as Christopher Bolton, the late
prior, held them.

There is a cast of the 13th-century seal of
this priory in the British Museum.” It is a
pointed oval, displaying the Blessed Virgin
crowned and seated on a throne, in the right
hand a sceptre, fleur-de-lis, and having the Holy
Child on the left knee. Remains of legend :—

SIGILLUM SAN ...¢e-+ IE «++ HA coe

Priors oF Ferrey #

Walter, probably first prior *
Adam de Nokton, temp. Henry I
William de Lovetot, temp. Henry II *

* Pat. 17 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 26.

% Add. MS. 36872, fol. 128.

” Aug. Off. Bks. ccxxxii, fol. 304.

1 and P. Hen. VIII. xii, 316 ; xiii (1), 579-81.

® Pat. 30 Hen. VIII, pt. vi, m. 19.

3° Casts of Seals, Ixx, 45.

81 The first five names occur in the chartulary in
various undated charters. The order in which they
are given is only conjectural, based on the witnesses to
the charters. 8 Add. MS. 36872, 254.

8 Tbid. fol. 29. “ Tbid. fol. 83-84, go.

J 3

Henry, temp. Henry III *

Thomas, temp. Henry III *

Walter, occurs c. 1240”

Henry, occurs 1260 *8

Ralph de Pleasley, occurs 1268, deposed 1276
Thomas de Wathenowe, 1276”
Alan de Elksley, 1281 *

William de Toveton, resigned 1315 #
Elias de Lyndeby, 1315 *

John de Kirkeby, 1328 “

John de Holebroke, 1349 *

Richard de Shirebrook, 1349 *
Robert Eavys, died 1378 *”

Thomas Elmeton, 1378 *

John de Mansfield, 1381 *

William Tuxford, died 1405

John Gaynesburgh, died 14425
Peter Methlay, 1442”

John Throghcroft, died 1454"
William Acworth, 1454

Richard Congreve, 1463"

William Symondson a/ias Bolton, 1482 °°
Laurence Ynggam, 1500”

Thomas Gatesford, resigned 1519 8
Thomas Stokk, 1519

Christopher Bolton, last prior ©

7. THE PRIORY OF NEWSTEAD

The priory of St. Mary of Newstead (De Novo
Loco) in Sherwood, a house of Austin Canons,
was founded by Henry II about the year 1170.
The first witness to the foundation charter was
Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Canterbury ; he was
preferred to the see of Ely in 1174. This
charter, executed at Clarendon, conferred on the
prior and canons a site near the centre of the
forest ; Papplewick, with its church and mill and
all things pertaining to the town in wood and
plain, together with the meadow of Bestwood by
the side of the water; and roos. of rent in
Shapwick and Walkeringham. At the same
time the king confirmed to them lands in
Nottinghamshire, the gift of Robert de Caus and
John the cook."

Thid. fol. 84, 106.

Ibid. fol. 89. * Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 38.
38 Add. MS. 36872, fol. 1314.

% Tbid. fol. 91 ; York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 142-3.
© Ibid.

“York Epis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 179.

“ Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 11. © Ibid.

“Thid. fol. 16. “ Tbid. fol 18.

® Ibid. fol. 24. 5' Thid. fol. 28.
® Tbid. 3 Ibid. fol. 30.
Tid. * Tbid. fol. 31.
Thid. fol. 37. Tkid. fol. 41.
58 Ibid. fol. 45. ® Thid.

112

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

The great forest wastes around the monastery
granted to the canons by their founder were
known in the old charter as ‘Kygell’ and
‘ Ravenshede,’ their bounds being set forth with
much particularity at the beginning of an old
chartulary.?

King John in 1206 confirmed the founder’s
grant, making mention also of the church of
Hucknall, and of his own gift, when Earl of
Mortain, of £7 os. 6d. of lands in Walkeringham,
Misterton, ‘Sepewic,’ and ‘ Walkerith’ (Lincoln-
shire).?

On 8 May 1238 the royal mandate was sent
to the Prior of Newstead to let Thomas de
Dunholmia, citizen of London, have all the
goods late of Joan, Queen of Scots, deposited
with them after her death by Brother John de
Sancto Egidio and Henry Balliol to do therewith
what the king has enjoined on them.‘

In April 1241 the convent of Newstead had
licence from the king to elect a prior; the said
licence being delivered at Westminster to Henry
son of Walkelin and Thomas de Donham, two
of the canons who took the news to the king of
the death of Prior Robert.®

A confirmation charter of Henry IIT in 1247
makes further mention of the gifts of Robert de
Lexinton of all the land of Scarcliffe, with the
capital messuage, park, mills, homage, and service
of William de Grangia from his holding in Crich
(Derbyshire) with the towns of Staythorpe (Not-
tinghamshire) and Rowthorn (Derbyshire).°

Henry III in 1245 ratified the gift which
John de Stutevill made by charter to St. Mary
of Newstead in Sherwood and the canons there
of 40s. rent and a quarter of wheat yearly out of
the manor of Kirkby in Ashfield and to provide
wine and bread for the altar use.”

In 1251 Henry III gave to the priory 10
acres of land out of the royal hay of Linby, to
be held quit of regard and view of foresters and
verderers and of all forest pleas, with licence to
inclose the land with a hedge and dike.®

The convent was so seriously in debt in 1274
that the king appointed Robert de Sutton of
Averham to take the custody of the priory
during pleasure.°

The Prior of Newstead maintained his various
rights in Misterton, Papplewick, Staythorpe,
Walkeringham, &c. at the beginning of the reign
of Edward I, by the production of charters that
covered the various possessions of the convent in
Derbyshire as well as Nottinghamshire, and also
their various chartered privileges, such as freedom

Cited in Dugdale, Mon. vi, 474-5.
> Chart. R. 6 John, m. 4, no. 42.
“Pat. 23 Hen. III, m. 8 d.

5’ Pat. 25 Hen. III, m. 8.

*Chart. R. 31 Hen. III, m. 9.

* Pat. 29 Hen. III, m. 2.

*Pat. 35 Hen. III, m. 7.

*Pat. 2 Edw. I, m. 3.

from toll and custom throughout England.
They had neither pillory nor tumbrel jurisdiction
on their Nottinghamshire manors, but were able
to maintain their rights to assize of bread and
beer and to view of frankpledge.!°

A few years later, namely in 1279, the prior
and convent obtained leave to fell and sell the
timber of the wood of 40 acres which had been
given them in 1245; such a step as this would
bring considerable financial relief.

The Taxation Roll of 1291 gives the income
of the priory as £86 135.6¢. "The appropriated
churches of Stapleford, Papplewick, Tuxford,
Egmanton, and Hucknall ‘orkard produced
£49 195. 4d.; the remainder was from tempor-
alities in Nottinghamshire £35 175. 6d. and in
Lincolnshire 16s. 8d."

This house was again in financial difficulties
in 1295, when at their own request Hugh de
Vienna was appointed by the Crown to take
charge of their revenues, applying the income,
saving a reasonable sustenance for the prior,
canons, and their men, to the relief of their debts,
no sheriff, bailiff, or such-like minister to lodge in
the priory or its granges during such custody.¥
On 25 July 1300 another like custodian, Peter
de Leicester, a king’s clerk, was appointed after
a similar fashion.™

The king in 1304 made an important augmen-
tation of the possessions of Newstead, by granting
the house 180 acres of the waste in the forest
hay of Linby at a rent of £4 due to the sheriff,
with licence to inclose them and bring them into
cultivation."* Two years later a grant was made
of all tithes of these 180 cultivated acres, provided
they were not within the limits of any parish.1®

Both Edward I and Edward II seem to have
been attached to this house in the centre of the
forest, notwithstanding the important royal hunt-
ing lodge at Clipston. Edward I sojourned at
Newstead in August 1280 and in September
1290, and Edward II in September 1307 and
October 1315, as is shown by the Patent and
Close Rolls.

In 1310 the priory, on account of its indebt-
edness, was once again taken into protection by
the Crown, John de Hothun, king’s clerk, being
appointed to administer the revenues.”

The royal licence was obtained in 1315, when
Edward II was at Clipston, to permit the appro-
priation of the church of Egmanton.®

” Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 60; ii, 25, 26, 29
301, 302, 305, 311, 3155 Plac. de Quo War, (Rec.
Com.), 646-7.

"Pat. 7 Edw. I, m. 2.

™ Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 74, 310, 3104,
3114, 312.

8 Pat. 23 Edw. I, m. 3.

4% Pat. 28 Edw. I, m. 8.

1 Pat. 32 Edw. I, m. 28.

% Pat. 35 Edw. I, m. 19.

” Pat. 4 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 5.

% Pat. g Edw. II, pt. i, m. 2.

2 113 15

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

In 1317 the prior and convent obtained licence
from Edward II when at Nottingham to acquire
in mortmain lands, tenements, and rents to the
value of £20 a year.!® This licence was vacated
and surrendered in 1392, for it was not until that
date that Newstead acquired (by a number of
small grants) lands and tenements in full satisfac-
tion thereof.”

A grant of some pecuniary value was made by
the same king in 1318, when it was settled that
on a voidance of the priory the sub-prior and
convent of Newstead were to have the custody
thereof with full and free administration of all
Its possessions and issues during such voidance,
saving to the king, however, knights’ fees, advow-
sons, wards, reliefs, and marriages which might
fall in.?!

In 1324 the Crown granted pardon to the
Prior and Convent of Newstead for the unlicensed
alienation to them in mortmain by Ralph de
Frechville of all the lands which they had of fee
of Ralph in Scarcliffe and Palterton, Derbyshire,
with capital messuage, inclosed park, mill stews,
services of freemen and villeins, &c., together with
the homage and service of William de Warsop
and his heirs for a tenement he held in Crich,
with grant that they might hold the same in frank-
almoign.”

News of the resignation of Prior Richard de
Grange was brought to the king at Nottingham
by the canons Robert de Sutton and Robert de
Wylleby on 13 December 1324, and they took
back with them leave to elect. On 10 Decem-
ber the king signified the Archbishop of York
that he had assented to the election of William
de Thurgarton, canon of Newstead, as prior.
Owing to informality, the archbishop quashed
the election and claimed that the right of pre-
ferment had devolved upon him. Recognizing,
however, the worth of William de Thurgarton,
the archbishop proceeded to collate him as su-
perior ; and the king, when at Ravensdale, the
forest lodge of Dufheld, Derbyshire, on 10 Jan-
uary 1323, issued his mandate for the deliverance
of the temporalities to the new prior.”

The financial difficulties of Newstead do not
seem to have much abated when Edward III
came tothe throne. In 1330 the prior and
convent, in consideration of their poverty, had
remitted to them the rent of £4 due to the
sheriff for the 180 acres within the hay of Linby,
granted to them by Edward I.™

Licence was granted in 1334 for the alienation
by William de Cossall to the priory of twelve
messuages, a mill, and various lands, &c., in Cossall
and Nottingham, to find three chaplains, to wit,

® Pat. 11 Edw. II, pt.i, m. 32.

Pat: 16 Ric. I pri, me7:

7 Pat. 12 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 25.

* Pat. 17 Edw. II, pt. ti, m. 27.

% Pat. 18 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 2, 1 ; pt. ii, m. 34.
* Pat. 4 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 41.

two in the church of St. Katherine, Cossall, and
one in the priory to celebrate daily for the souls
of him, his ancestors and successors.” —

In 1341 Henry de Edwinstow, king’s clerk,
and William and Robert his brothers had licence
to alienate to the priory various lands in the
counties of Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham,
Derby, and Lancaster, of the annual value of £10,
to find two chaplains to celebrate daily in the
church of St. Mary, Edwinstowe, one in honour
of Our Lady and the other for the good estate
(and after death for the souls) of the donors,
their father, mother, and other relations, friends
and benefactors, and to celebrate Henry’s obit.
The prior and convent bound themselves to pay
to one of these chaplains, who was to be warden
of the altar of St. Margaret in Edwinstowe Church,
ten marks a year for the stipends of himself and
his brother chaplain and another mark for the
obit of Henry. After the donor’s death, and the
death of one Robert de Calverton, the presen-
tation to these two chaplaincies was to rest with
the priory of Newstead.”

Richard II in 1392 granted to the Prior and
Convent of Newstead a tun of wine yearly in the
port of Kingston upon Hull, in aid of the main-
tenance of divine service.”’

Henry VI in 1437 licensed Prior Robert and
convent to inclose 8 acres within Sherwood
Forest, just in front of the entry to the priory,
and to dike, quickset, and hedge it, for which
they were to render at the Exchequer one rose at
Midsummer.”

Edward IV in 1461 licensed John Durham
the prior and his convent to inclose 48 acres of
forest granted them by Henry II, adjoining the
priory on the north, east, and south, with a ditch
and low hedge, and to cut down and dispose of
the wood growing thereon.”

Much can be gleaned relative to Newstead
Priory from the York Episcopal Registers.

The appropriation of the church of Stapleford
to the priory of Newstead was sanctioned by
Archbishop Gray in 1229 on the score of their
poverty.

Archbishop Gray in 1234 on account of their
poverty granted to the priory and convent of
Newstead the church of Hucknall Torkard for
their own uses, of which they already had the
advowson ; they were to enter into it after the
death or cession of Helias the then rector.*!

Archbishop Gray visited Newstead Priory in
the octave of the Holy Trinity 1252, when he
found, after individual examination, that the

* Pat. 8 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 24, 18.

* Pat. 15 Edw. III, pt. ii,m. 10; pt.iii, m. 1; see
also Pat.17 Edw. III, pt.ii, m. 25 ; and 20 Edw. III,
pt. i, m. 21,

* Pat, 16 Ric. Il, pt. i,m, 37, 19.

* Pat. 1 Edw. IV, pt. iii, m. 10.

*° York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 30. ° Ibid. fol. 66.

114

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

prior and canons were fervid in religion and lovers
of peace and concord. After praising them most
highly the diocesan laid down, for their still
better rule, that the third prior was to regulate
cloister discipline when the prior and sub-prior
were not present; that the prior and sub-prior,
with three or four canons, were at least once a
year to hear from the cellarer and other obedien-
tiaries an account of the expenses and receipts of
all matters under their control; that when this
audit was finished they were to present to the
convent the state of the house and what money
was owing ; that they were to make a special in-
ventory of the rents and of the stock of every
kind, stating sex and age, that it might readily
appear whether the goods of the house were
increasing or decreasing ; that one copy of the
account was to be in the charge of the treasurer
and another in the charge of the cellarer ; that
the seal of the convent, sealed with the seal of the
prior, should be in the treasury in the custody of
some discreet canon, nor were any letters to
be sealed with it save in the presence of the
convent or of the senior part of it; that the
collection and custody of alms should be put by
the prior into the hands of some honest per-
son ; that the cloister, refectory, and other places
appropriated to the canons be guarded from the
access of boys and dishonourable persons ; and
that these injunctions be read twice a year before
the convent.”

Archbishop Geoffrey de Ludham (1258-65)
personally visited Newstead on 4 July 1259 and
approved of the statutes made by Archbishop Gray,
adding certain injunctions of his own. The prior,
considering the evil days in which they were living,
was to do his best to obtain grace and favour with
patrons ; he was personally to receive guests with
a smiling countenance (vultu prout decet bilari et
jocundo) and to merit the love of his convent, doing
nothing without the counsel of the older canons.
Medicines were to be reserved for the sick ; any
brother noticing the infringement of a rule was
to speak ; there was to be no drinking after com-
pline, nor wanderings outside the cloister ; and a
canon was to be specially deputed to look after
the sick.%8

It is often forgotten that all the chief religious
orders had their own scheme of visitation, inde-
pendent of the diocesan. An interesting reminder
of this occurs in an entry of a Newstead visitation
which took place on 16 July 1261; it was
subsequently entered in Giffard’s register. The
visitors on this occasion were the priors of the
two Austin houses of Nostell and Guisborough,
who were at that time the duly appointed
provincial visitors of the order. ‘They enjoined
that a good servant, with a boy, was to be placed
in the infirmary, and that one of the canons was

* York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 210.

* This visitation is entered in Giffard’s Reg. fol.
98d.

115

to say the canonical hours for them, as well as
celebrate mass, according to the rule of the Blessed
Augustine.“* A chamberlain was to be appointed
to provide clothes and shoes for the convent ; he
was to have a ho.se to attend fairs and a servant
assigned him to buy necessaries. The canons’
dishes were to have more eggs and relishes, but
within moderation, never more than three eggs.
No one was to drink but in the refectory after col-
lation, and then to attend compline. Accounts were
to be rendered twice a year. Canons were to make
open amends in chapter on Sundays for trans-
gressions. A lay brother (conversus) was to look
after the tannery, with a canon to superintend
and to see to the buying and selling. Another
lay brother was to have charge of the garden,
under the sub-cellarer. Finally, the prior was
ordered to bring Canon Richard de Walkering-
ham with him to the next general chapter ; he
was to testify whether these injunctions had been
obeyed.

On 24 October 1267 the resignation of Prior
William, who had held office for thirty-seven
years, was accepted by Archbishop Giffard, in
consequence of age and infirmity.*8

Consequent on a personal visitation of New-
stead, Archbishop Wickwane, on 4 July 1280,
issued injunctions, wherein he charged the prior
to be earnest about divine service and the spiri-
tual refreshment of the brethren; to punish
impartially ; and to obtain the convent’s consent
in matters of business. The sub-prior was
exhorted to be zealous in his office, to see that
silence was kept as appointed andthe rule gener-
ally observed. ‘Those who were really ill were
to be well treated ; nothing was to be drunk
after compline, save in illness; the carols were
to be unlocked twice a year, and oftener if there
was occasion, in order to eradicate the vice of
private property; clothes were to be allotted
from a common store, the distribution of money
for this purpose to be altogether abandoned ; the
roofs of the frater and dorter were to be re-
paired ; visits of outsiders to cloister, frater,
farmery, or the precincts of the monastery were
interdicted ; letters to be sealed before the whole
convent and the seal to be in safe custody ; two

3% «The master of the infirmary ought to have mass
celebrated daily for the sick, either by himself or by
some other person, should they in anywise be able to
come into the chapel ; but if not he ought to take his
stool and missal and reverently at their bedsides make
the memorials of the day, of the Holy Spirit and of
Our Lady ; and if they cannot sing the canonical
hours for themselves, he ought to sing them for them,
and frequently in the spirit of gentleness repeat to
them words of consolation, of patience, and of hope in
God; read to them, for their consolation, lives of
Saints ; conceal from them all evil rumours ; and in no
wise distress them when they are resting.’ Willis
Clark, Customs of the Augustinian Canons, 205.

% York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 1000, 101.

% Ibid. fol. 98d.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

of the canons, Robert de Hykeling and John de
Tyshulle, to be confined to cloister for the im-
provement of their manners; another canon
was to be restored to the general convent
through penitence, but the cellarer and cook
were to be deprived of their office; accounts
were to be rendered twice a year; and these
injunctions to be read in full chapter once a
month.”

The submission of Adam, sub-prior, and of
the convent of Newstead is enrolled in Arch-
bishop Romayne’s register, under date 1 August
1288, inasmuch as they had proceeded to the
election of a prior, the cession of the former
superior, John de Lexinton, not having been
admitted. On the following day the cession
was duly admitted by the Archdeacon of Rich-
mond, the archbishop’s vicar-general, and licence
granted to elect his successor. On 2 September
Richard de Hallam, sub-cellarer of the house,
was presented to the vicar-general as the new
Prior of Newstead, elected in the place of
John de Lexinton. ‘The election, however, was
quashed on account of various technical irregu-
larities, but the vicar-general, recognizing the
personal fitness of Richard for the position,
appointed him to the office on his own authority
and prayed the king to be favourable to the
appointment and give it his sanction.

On g January 1292-3 the archbishop con-
firmed the election of Richard de Grange, a
canon of Newstead, as prior; mandate was
issued to the archdeacon to install him; and on
the same day information was forwarded to
Edward I asking for his royal sanction.®

Consequent on a personal visitation of this
priory by Archbishop Romayne, injunctions were
issued on 19 August 1293 for the correction of
the house, to the effect that silence was to be
observed in church, cloister, dorter, and frater ;
that anyone receiving new garments from the
common store was to give up the old ones ; that
the sick were to be more delicately fed, and not
with the gross food of the convent; that the
presence of seculars was to be discouraged ; that
accounts were to be rendered once a year ; that
no corrodies were to be sold ; and that the carols
were to be inspected once a year. The arch-
bishop at the same time laid down that John
their late prior was to be honoured and his
counsel followed, because of his great services to
the house and his generosity about his pension
in freely and voluntarily giving up much to
which he was entitled. As a new ordinance for
his pension, the archbishop ordered that Brother
John was to have his chamber and garden as
previously arranged, with a canon’s livery for
himself and another for the canon who was to
dwell with him and say the divine offices, and
another for his boy ; and also 30s. a year for his

57 York Epis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 137.
88 Tbid. Romanus, fol. 73. ® Tbid. fol. 792.

own necessaries and for the boy’s wages; any
guest who came to visit him was to have his
meals in the frater or in the hall.

Another of the injunctions concerned the
restoration of eight marks out of the legacy of
R. de Everingham for the fabric of the church,
which sum Brother John, who was then prior,
converted to other uses of the house; and a
loan of twenty marks lent to the sacrist was to
be secured. ‘The sacrist, for various lapses, was
to be removed from his office. Richard of
Hallam, the late prior, was to be confined to
the cloister. Finally, all games of dice were
prohibited.*°

In September 1326 Pope John XXII issued
his mandate to the Archbishop of York to
appropriate the church of Egmanton, valued at
£10 per annum, to this priory, due provision
being made for a perpetual vicar.*!

Archbishop Richard le Scrope on 19 Sept-
ember 1397 commissioned Prior William de
Allerton to administer vows of perpetual chastity
to Cecilia, widow of John Crowshaw, burgess
of Nottingham, giving her ring, veil, and
mantle.”

The Valr of 1534 gave the clear annual
value of this priory as £167 16s. 113d. The
spiritualities, amounting to £58, included the
Nottinghamshire rectories of Papplewick, Huck-
nall Torkard, Stapleford, TTuxford, and Eg-
manton, and the Derbyshire rectory of Ault
Hucknall, with the chapel of Rowthorn. The
temporalities in the counties of Nottingham and
Derby brought in an income of £161 18s. 834d.
The considerable deductions included 20s, given
to the poor on Maundy Thursday in com-
memoration of Henry II, the founder, and a
portion of food and drink similar to that of
a canon given to some poor person every day,
valued at 60s. a year.#

Notwithstanding the considerable drop of the
clear annual value of Newstead below the £200
assigned as the limit for the suppression of the
lesser monasteries, this priory obtained the doubt-
ful privilege of exemption, on payment to the
Crown of the heavy fine of £233 6s. 8d. A
patent to this effect was issued on 16 Decem-
ber 1537.4

The surrender of this house was accomplished
on 21 July 1539. The signatures attached
were those of John Blake, prior, Richard
Kychun, sub-prior, John Bredon, cellarer, and
nine other canons, Robert Sisson, John Derfelde,
William Dotton, William Bathley, Christopher
Motheram, Geoffrey Acryth, Richard Hardwyke,
Henry Tingker, and Leonard Alynson.*

* Ibid. fol. 82, 83.

" Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 254.

® Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 93.

8 Valor Eccl, (Rec. Com.), v, 153-4.
“ Pat. 28 Hen. VIII, pt. iv, m. 18.
© Dep. Keeper's Rep. viii, App. ii, 33.

116

Sourawett Correciare Cuurcu

RIORY

Lenton P

Prior of Lenton

Perer

Priory

THURGARTON

Newsteap Priory

PLaTe

Monastic SEALs :

NovrinGHAMSHIRE

RELIGIOUS

On 24 July Dr. London, to whom the sur-
render was made, forwarded to Sir Richard Rich
the pension list he had drawn up, and asked for
its ratification. The prior obtained a pension of
£26 135. 4d., the sub-prior £6, and the rest of
the ten canons who signed the surrender sums
varying from £5 65. 8d. to £3 65. 8.

Immediately on the surrender being accom-
plished the custody of the house was handed
over to Sir John Byron of Colwick.*” In May
1540 Sir John Byron was put into legal posses-
sion of the house, site, church, steeple, church-
yard, and of all the lands, mills, advowsons,
rectories, &c. of the late priory.

There is a good impression of the first
(12th-century) seal of this priory attached to a
charter in the British Museum.*? The Blessed
Virgin is represented seated on a throne, with
the Holy Child on her left knee, and in the right
hand a fleur-de-lis. Legend :—

+ SIGILLUM . SANCTE MARIE NOVI LOCI I SCHI.

There is also a cast from an imperfect im-
pression of the second seal (14th-century) which
also bears the Virgin and Child, and has a dia-
pered background. Only two or three letters of
the legend remain.™

Priors oF NEWwsTEAD

Eustace, 1216

Richard, 1216 ®

Robert, 1234 8

William (late cellarer), 1241
William, 1267 ®

John de Lexinton, resigned 1288 *°
Richard de Hallam, 1288 *”

Richard de Grange, 1293 ®

William de Thurgarton, 1324 °°
Hugh de Colingham, 1349 ®
William de Colingham, resigned 1356 ®
John de Wylesthorp, resigned 1366 ®
William de Allerton, 1366 ®

* L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (1), 1313.

“ Tbid. 1321.

“Pat. 32 Hen. VIII, pt. iv, m. 7.

® Harl. Chart. 83, C. 43.

5 Seal Casts, lxx, 54.

| Harl. MSS. 6957, fol. 241.

% Pat. 19 Hen. III, m. 17.

* Close, 25 Hen. III, m. 9.

*® Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 177.

% Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 5; Pat. 16 Edw. I,
m. 10.

Thid.

8 Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 107; Pat. 21 Edw. I,
pt. i, m. 22.

*\ Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 20.

® Thid.

* Thid.

8 Tbid.

HOUSES

John de Hucknall, 1406
William Bakewell, 1417 ®
Thomas Carleton, resigned 1424 %
Robert Cutwolfe, resigned 1424 ©
William Misterton, 1455 ©

John Durham, 1461 ©

Thomas Gunthorp, 1467 7
William Sandale, 15047!

John Blake, 1526”

8. THE PRIORY OF SHELFORD

Shelford Priory, a house of Austin Canons,
was founded by Ralph Haunselyn or Hauselin,!
in the reign of Henry II. In a suit between
William Bardolf and Adam de Everingham in
1258 for the patronage of this priory, the former
pleaded that his ancestor Ralph Hauselin,
whose heir he was, in the time of the then
king’s grandfather founded the priory and en-
feoffed it of all his lands in Shelford and else-
where, and of the advowson of certain churches.
Adam, on the contrary, asserted that Robert de
Caus, his ancestor, was founder, because the
canons presented a certain person to John de
Birkin (Adam’s grandfather), whose heir he was.
The prior himself could not say who was patron,
as he had one charter by which Ralph Haunselin
founded the priory, another by which Robert de
Caus gave lands to ‘his monks (sic) ’ of Shelford,
and a third recording a joint grant by Ralph and
Robert. The litigants each held a moiety of
the barony of Shelford,’ but the jury decided in
favour of Bardolf, declaring that Ralph Hauselin
was the true founder.®

The Taxation Roll of 1291 sets forth the
income of the house: in spiritualities, the church
of Saxondale £4, part of the church of Musk-
ham {10 13s. 4d, and pensions from the
churches of Shelford, Burton Joyce, and Gedling
£1 2s. 5 and in temporalities, in various parts of
the county, £2 25. 11d., making a total income
of £37 185. 3.4

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 shows a
great rise in the annual value of this house; the
gross income is entered at £151 145, Id., and

6 Ibid. fol. 24; Pat. 7 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 3.

6 Dugdale, Mon. vi, 474.

8 Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 25.

67 Tbid. ; Pat. 2 Hen. VI, pt. ili, m. 12.

* Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 30.

® Ibid. ; Pat. 1 Edw. IV, pt. i, m. 14.

7 Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 343; Pat. 7 Edw. IV,
pt. ii, m. 19.

7 Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 42.

73 [bid. fol. 46.

1 Forms which represent the ‘Alselin’ of Domes-
day. In many printed records and some MSS. it is
given as Hanselin.

2 The Domesday fief of Geoffrey Alselin.

3 Coram Rege, Mich. 14 Edw. H, m. 153.

‘ Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 310, 3105, 312,

338.

117

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

the clear at £116 12s, 1}d. The spiritualities
were considerable, including the rectories of
Shelford, Saxondale, Gedling, Burton Joyce, and
North Muskham, Nottinghamshire ; Elvaston,
with the chapel of Ockbrook, Derbyshire ; and
Westborough, Rauceby, half the church of
’ Dorrington, with several pensions from other
churches in Lincolnshire. The temporalities
were chiefly in Nottinghamshire, but also in-
cluded rents at Weston, Elvaston, and Kirk
Hallam, Derbyshire, and at Fulbeck and Lin-
coln, Lincolnshire. The heaviest outgoing was
£10 a year to the chantry of Corpus Christi in
the church of Newark ; the sum of £2 6s. 84d.
was also paid annually in alms to commemorate
the founders, who are there set down as Ralph
Hauselin and Robert Caus.®

There are various references to this priory in
the earlier of the York registers. Archbishop
Gray in 1230 confirmed to the Prior and Con-
vent of Shelford several pensions out of Notting-
hamshire churches, half a mark out of the
mediety of the church of Gedling ; half a mark
from the church of Laxton; half a mark from
the church of Burton-on-Trent, i.e. Burton
Joyce; a stone of wax from the church of
Kelham; and after the deaths of the then
rectors of Gedling and Laxton, each of these
churches to pay a mark as pension.®

On 4 November 1270 Archbishop Giffard
instructed his bailiff at Southwell to deliver
three oaks suitable for timber to the Prior of
Shelford, out of his wood of Sherwood.’

In January 1270-1 the archbishop gave an
award as to the right of pasturage in the field of
Basford, about which there had been a fierce
dispute between the priory of Shelford and the
burgesses of Nottingham, the parties having
bound themselves under oath to observe the
award, under a penalty of roo |b. of silver.
The award was in favour of the burgesses, but
the town had to pay the priory 30 marks for
damages and expenses.®

Consequent on a personal visitation of Shel-
ford Priory, the following injunctions or correc-
tions were dispatched to the house on 4 June
1280:—The prior to discard all torpor both in
spiritual and temporal affairs, and to rely on the
counsel of his brethren; the sub-prior to re-
strict himself to his office, such as the joint
custody of the seal; useless servants in granges
to be removed ; the rule of silence at stated
times and places not to be infringed ; worthless
persons not to be allowed to eat and drink in
the frater ; noone to be admitted to the farmery
save the doctors; no one to be allowed to drink
or eat after compline, save in the presence of
the prior and by his express licence, or in case of

5 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 162-3.
® York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 34.

” Ibid. Giffard, fol. 54.

8 Nott. Bor. Rec. 1, 50-3.

sickness ; the sick to be better treated and fed,
and alms (in kind) to be more safely kept ;
canons not to go out of cloister save for necessity
or by express leave of the president ; carols and
chests with locks to be opened twice a year by
the prior in the presence of a fellow canon, in
order that the vice of private property might be
expelled ; no money to be paid for clothes, but
they are to be allotted out of the common store ;
no little gifts or letters to be received without
licence of the president, and these to be applied
to the common use ; and these injunctions to be
read in full chapter at the beginning of each
month.°

The visitation of Shelford Priory by Arch-
bishop Romayne in 1280 produced the follow-
ing injunctions: The prior to do his duty
better, to refrain from indulgence in drink (a@
superfluis potacionibus se temperet), and to avail
himself of the advice of his experienced and
faithful servants, to frequent church and chapter
at the proper hours, to correct excesses without
favour, to sell no corrody without the diocesan’s
special licence, to feed with the convent, except
at the advent of guests or for other reasonable
causes, to correct the obedientiaries after a tem-
perate fashion, to retain no waster nor quarrel-
some person, and to take the advice of the
convent on the expenditure of the house. The
sub-prior was to obey the prior, to punish with
discretion, and to abstain from all manner of busi-
ness. The cellarer and the bursar to render
their accounts yearly. Silence to be strictly ob-
served at the appointed times and places ; no gifts
to be received but by leave; all canons to keep
within the cloister, save by leave, which is to be
freed from seculars and closed after compline ;
old clothes to be given to the poor without pay-
ment; the carols to be opened now and again,
with the view of excluding private ownership ;
the sick to be better fed and tended, and the
farmery kept clear of secular persons; the
canons’ boys returning from their exterior labour
to be excluded from the farmery and to have
their meals in a proper place in the common
hall; and no seculars or unfit persons to enter
the cellarer’s buildings or the frater. These in-
junctions were to be read in full chapter thrice a
year, in a distinct and intelligible voice.

On 30 March 1289 Archbishop Romayne
issued licence to the sub-prior and convent of
Shelford to elect a new prior in the place of
John de Nottingham, who had held the office
for many years." On 21 April the archbishop
confirmed the election of Robert de Tytheby,
canon and sacrist of Shelford, as prior.

The mandate of the archbishop was addressed
to the (rural) Dean of Retford 5 September 1293,
ordering him to forbid the Prior and Convent of

* York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 137.
© Ibid. Romanus, fol. 71 d.
" Tbid. fol. 74. ” Ibid. fol. 74d.

118

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Shelford to use the divine offices in the parish
church of Shelford, polluted by the shedding of
blood, until it had been reconciled, and citing
the prior to appear before him on 1 October,
wherever he (the archbishop) might happen to
be.”

The priory obtained the royal licence in 1310
to appropriate the moiety of the church of
Gedling, which was of their patronage."

Diocesan sanction was given in 1311 to the
appropriation of the churches of Shelford and
Saxondale and the mediety of the church of
North Muskham to the priory of Shelford.”

The priory had licence from the Crown in
1316 to appropriate a moiety of the church of
Westborough, which was of their advowson.!°

From the dating of various entries on the
Patent Rolls for 1317 and 1319 it would appear
that Edward II made brief sojourns at Shelford
Priory during those years.

Part of the income of the priory was derived
from the sale of wool from sheep feeding on
the demesne lands. In 1333 Crown licence
was obtained for Godeking de Revele and
Robert Stuffyn of Newark, merchants, to convey
to the staples and thence export at will, not-
withstanding the ordinance of the staples, wool
purchased by them from the Prior of Shelford
before the making of such ordinance.”

At the pleas of the forest held at Notting-
ham in 1335 the Prior of Shelford successfully
maintained his rights in a wood at Gedling
commonly called ‘le Priors Parke.’ “Thomas de
Birkin, soon after the foundation of the house,
gave to the canons of the Blessed Mary of Shel-
ford all his park of Gedling and the wood
therein.

In 1348, on payment of £20 tothe Exchequer,
the priory obtained the Crown licence for the
appropriation of the church of Burton Joyce.

In May of the following year confirmation
was obtained of an indenture of Prior William
de Leicester (who died of the plague a few
months later) and the convent of Shelford,
granting to John de Woodhouse, perpetual
chaplain of the altar of Corpus Christi in the
church of Newark, and to his successors, a yearly
rent of 5 marks to pray for the souls of Alan
Fleming of Newark and Alice his wife, their
sons and daughters and others ; for due payment
the prior and canons bound their house and
goods, and specially their manors of Saxondale
and North Muskham.”

Confirmation was also obtained in June 1350

® York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 82 d.
* Pat. 4 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 20.

'® Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 238.

® Pat. g Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 22.

7 Pat. 7 Edw, III, pt. i, m. 2.

® Harl. MS. 4954, fol. 31, 39, 44.

® Pat. 22 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 7.

” Pat. 23 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 11.

of an indenture of Prior Thomas de Chilwell
and the convent of Shelford, binding themselves
to pay yearly to the chapter of Lincoln £6 135. 4d.
to a chantry chaplain celebrating daily for the
souls of Henry de Edwinstow, late canon, and
his benefactors, in return for a welcome subsidy
from the executors of Canon Henry’s will. As
a special security for this payment every prior
of Shelford, within fifteen days of his appoint-
ment, was to swear on the Holy Gospels to
observe the premises.”!

In 1392 licence was obtained by John de
Landeford, vicar, for the alienation in mortmain
of a moiety of the church of Gedling, and by
John Ward of Shelford for the alienation of
three messuages, lands and rents in Shelford and
Stoke Bardolph, co. Nottingham, and one messuage
in Alvaston, co. Derby, to the Prior and Convent
of Shelford.” In the following year licence was
granted for further gifts of lands in Lowdham,
Gunthorpe, and Caythorpe.™

The second half of the church of West-
borough, co. Lincoln, was appropriated to Shel-
ford in 1398.4

At the time of the death of Prior William de
Kynalton and the succession of Robert Lyndby,
in 1404, it was found that during the rule of
the late prior, which had extended over a period
of nearly forty years, the house had become
indebted to the extent of 80 marks, the burden
of the perpetual pensions amounted to £20, and
the corrodies to a total of £40. The temporali-
ties and spiritualities were declared to be of the
annual value of £120.”

Shelford was subjected in 1536 to a visitation
from Legh and Layton, who stated that three
of the canons were guilty of unnatural sin and
three others of incontinence, and that three
desired release from their vows. They also
stated that the girdle and milk of the Virgin
and part of a candle which she is said to
have carried at her purification were here
venerated. The priory was further possessed of
some of the oil of the Holy Cross and of St.
Katherine. They estimated the annual income
at £100, and the debts at £30.”

Archbishop Cranmer was not above asking
favours of Cromwell out of the wreck of the
monasteries. On 25 March 1536 he wrote
from Lambeth to Cromwell :—‘I desire your
favor for the bearer, my brother-in-law, who 1s
now clerk of my kitchen, to have the farm of
the priory of Shelford, or of some other house in
Notts, now suppressed.’*”

In June 1536 the Crown granted almost the
whole of the manors, advowsons, and other

31 Pat,
2 Pat.

24 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 6.
16 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 36.
3 Pat. 17 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 10.
4 Pat, 22 Ric. II, pt. ili, m. 16.
* Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 88.

119

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

properties of the priory to Michael Stanhope for
sixty years, at arental of £20. The property is
described as ‘late of Henry Norres, attainted.’ 8

In November 1537 Michael Stanhope and
Anne his wife obtained grant in tail male of the
house and site of the suppressed priory of Shel-
ford, with church, belfry, churchyard, 174 acres
of arable land, 30 of meadow and 60 of pasture
in Shelford, together with the common fishery.”
Michael Stanhope was the second son of Sir
Edward Stanhope of Rampton.

There is a cast from a 13th-century impression
of the seal of Shelford Priory at the British
Museum.” It is a pointed oval, displaying the
Blessed Virgin, crowned and seated on a carved
throne, beneath a canopy supported on slender
shafts and with the Holy Child on her left knee.
Remains of legend :—

SIGILLUM . . . HELFORDIE

Priors OF SHELFORD

Alexander, occurs 1204!

William, occurs c. 1225 *

John de Nottingham, occurs 1271,** resigned
1289"

Robert de Tithby, 1289 *

Laurence, died c. 1310

Thomas de Lexinton, c. 1310 *8

Robert de Mannesfield, 1315 *”

William de Breton, 1320 *

William de Leicester, 1340 *°

Stephen de Bassyngborn, 1349 “

Thomas de Chilwell, 1349 *

(Alexander de Insula, elected 1358) #

Roger de Graystock, appointed 1358 *

William de Kynalton, 1365 **

Robert Lyndby, 1404

William de Righton, 1408 *

Walter Cutwolfe, died 1459 ”

John Bottesford, 1459 ®

* L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 364.

»® Pat. 29 Hen. VIII, pt. i, m. 33.

%° Seal Casts, Ixx, 36.

5! See account of Welbeck Abbey below.

3 Thoroton, Notts. i, 288.

3 Nort. Bor. Rec. i, 50.

% Harl. MS 6970, fol. 106. % Tbid.

3° Thomas de Lexinton, elected by the canons on
the death of Prior Laurence, was approved by
Edward II and instituted by Archbi:hop William
(died 1315) ; Coram Rege, Mich. 14 Edw. 1f, m. 153.

87 Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 243.

§ Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 16.

%° Tbid. fol. 13.

“ Ibid. fol. 18. " Thid.

“ Ibid. fol. 20. The arcabishop appointed Roger
de Graystock, quashing the election of Alexander as a
persona inepta.

® Ibid.

“ Ibid. fol. 24.

"Ibid. fol. 30.

‘' Ibid.

Ibid. fol. 37.

Richard Stokes, 1479 *°
Robert Helmsley, 1491
Henry Sharp, 1498"
Robert Dickson *

g. THE PRIORY OF THURGARTON

The name D’Aincourt or Deincourt had its
origin in the village of Aincourt in Normandy,
not far from Mantes on the Seine. The first
English baron of this name was Walter, con-
nected by marriage with the Conqueror, and
himself a kinsman of Bishop Remigius. This
Walter Deincourt was richly rewarded by his
leader, obtaining the grant of one manor in
Northamptonshire, four in the West Riding,
eleven in Derbyshire, seventeen in Lincolnshire,
and thirty-four in Nottinghamshire, including
that of Thurgarton.!

Walter had two sons, William and Ralph.
The firstborn died young, and was buried before
the western door of Lincoln Cathedral. Ralph
became his father’s heir and the second Baron
Deincourt.

This Ralph Deincourt, for the health of his
soul and of those of his sons and daughters, his
parents and all his progenitors, founded a house
of Austin Canons at Thurgarton in honour of
St. Peter. The baron was moved to do this,
as he states in the foundation charter, by the
advice and prayers of Thurstan, Archbishop of
York, of pious memory. He bestowed on the
house the whole of Thurgarton and Fiskerton and
all the churches of his demesnes, namely those of
Granby and Coates, Nottinghamshire, Swayfield,
(Cold) Hanworth, Scopwick, Kirkby, Branston,
Timberland, and Blankney, Lincolnshire, and
Langwith, Derbyshire, with all manner of appur-
tenances.* The reference to Archbishop Thurstan
shows that the house was not founded until
after 1140, which was the year of that prelate’s
decease.

Two registers or chartularies of this house
survived its dissolution, both named by Tanner ;
one of these was in the possession of the Earl of
Chesterfield, and the other in the hands of Mr.

” Thid.

5! Tbid. fol. 39.

* Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 136. ‘ Last prior,’

"He must, however, have been enfeoffed by his
father, upon a portion of the latter’s fee, for he
granted the tithes of Granby and Knapthorpe to the
abbey of St. Mary York; see below.

* It deserves notice that tithes from a number of
manors in the d’Aincourt fee had been granted
before the foundation of Thurgarton Priory to the
abbey of St. Mary York. Walter d’Aincourt,
the founder of the family, had given the tithes of
Thurgarton itself to the latter house (Mon. iu,
537). It does not appear, however, that any dispute
arose on this question between Thurgarton and St.
Mary’s.

* Dugdale, Mon. vi, 191.

® Ibid. fol. 37.

120

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Cecil Cooper in 1677. There are a considera-
ble number of benefaction charters cited from
the former of these in the AZonasticon.4 Among
Gervase Holles’s collections are a long series of
extracts from the latter chartulary, which was
‘penes Rogerum Cooper mil. A.D. 1643.’°
This Cooper chartulary is the one which is
now in the library of the cathedral church of
Southwell.™

A charter of inspection and confirmation,
granted by Edward HI in 1340, recites a large
number of benefactions conferred upon the
priory subsequent to the foundation charter.®
The more important of these were the gifts of
the church of Blackwell (Derbyshire), by William
Fitz Ranulph; of the church of Warrington
(Lancashire), the church of Tythby, and the
chapel of Cropwell Butler, by Matthew de
Vilers ; of the church of Sutton in Ashfield and

_ 2 bovates of land in that township, by Gerard
son of Walter of Sutton ; of the mill of Clive,
by William Carpenter ; of the mill of Dover-
beck, by Robert de Cauz; of Snelling mill, on
Doverbeck, by Ralph de Beauchamp; of the
church of Hoveringham, by Robert de Hovering-
ham ; of 7 bovates of land in Tythby, by Hugh
de Hoveringham; of the church of North
Wingfield (Derbyshire), by Ralph son of Roger
Deincourt ; of much land and a moiety of the
church of Owthorpe, by various donors ; of the
church of Lowdham, by Ralph Beauchamp ; of
demesnes and tenements in Hickling and Kinoul-
ton, and in Kirkby and Scopwick (Lincolnshire),
by Gerard de Phanecurt; of the church of
Adlington (Lancashire), by Henry Bisett; of
considerable lands, tenements, rents, &c. in
Saxondale, Harmston, Hawksworth, Aslockton,
Screveton, Car Colston, Flintham, Hoveringham,
Shelford (Notts.); and of other land in Boyles-
ton, Burnaston, Heanor, and Pilsley, Derby-
shire.’

By far the greater part of the Thurgarton
chartulary now at Southwell is concerned with
the grants of the benefactions just briefly recited.
Citations may be made of two or three other
entries of interest.

Richard Hacun of (Cold) Hanworth (Lincoln-
shire) by an early undated deed gave to the priory
a toft in the town of Hanworth and 3 bovates of
land in the fields of Hanworth, &c., in return
for which gift the canons covenanted to sustain
in perpetuity two wax lights burning at the
daily mass of Our Lady in their church of Thur-
garton, from the beginning of the canon to the
Our Father, and the celebrant to say at mass the

“ Dugdale, Mon. vi, 191-2.

® Lansd. MS. 207¢, fol. 1-93.

* It was given to Southwell chapter by Cecil
Cooper, great-great-grandson of Thomas Cooper, to
whom Henry VIII granted the dissolved priory.

° Pat. 14 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 30, 29,

” See also Thoroton, No#ss. ili, 54~7

special collect Inclina for the donor and for the
souls of his father Roger, his mother Maud, and
his uncle Matthew.’

Occasionally the spiritual interests of bene-
factors were secured after a much vaguer fashion.
Thus Sir Philip de Timberland in 1244 gave to
the canons of Thurgarton 4 acres of arable land
in the field of Timberland, requiring nothing in re-
turn for himself or his heirs save only their prayers.

Roger son of Wolvin de Kirkby granted by
an undated 13th-century charter all the land
which he held of Ralph son of John de Bergates
in the territory of Timberland, together with
the right to dig in Ralph’s marsh in Timberland
wherever he wished to the extent of 400 turves
yearly.”

The Taxation Roll of Pope Nicholas in 1291
gives the total income of the prioryas £247 16s. 3d.
The temporalities in various parts of Nottingham-
shire yielded £137 19s. 2d. and those in
Lincolnshire £27 135. 9d. The appropriations
of the six Nottinghamshire churches of Thur-
garton, Sutton in Ashfield, Granby, Owthorpe,
Hoveringham, and Tythby supplied an_ in-
come of £75 65. 8d., while small pensions
from the churches of Coates, Hawksworth,
and Cotham brought in an additional tos.
Pensions from the four Lincolnshire churches
of Blankney, (Cold) Hanworth, Branston, and
Swayfield, and from the Derbyshire church of
Langwith, supplied a furtherincome of £6 65. 84.1!
It is also of interest to note that Alexander de
Gedling, the Prior of Thurgarton, was the
collector of the crusading tenth of this date
throughout the archdeaconry of Nottingham.”

The returns of the Valor Ecclesiasticus of
1534 yield the much larger gross revenue of
£359 15s. 10d. The appropriations had con-
siderably increased. The Nottinghamshire
rectories of Thurgarton, Hoveringham, Sutton
in Ashfield, Owthorpe, Tythby, Ratcliffe on
Soar, Granby, ‘ Feldkirk,’ Cotham, and Fiskerton,
and those of Kirkby with Scopwick and Timber-
land in Lincolnshire and Blackwell and Elmton
in Derbyshire, in addition to a few pensions
from other churches in these three counties,
brought in an income of £169 10s. 8d. The
total in the same counties from temporalities
amounted to £210 5s. 2d. But the outgoings
were so numerous that the clear income was
reduced by more than a hundred pounds

5 Southwell Chart. fol. 952.

9 ¢Nisi tantummodo preces et orationes predictorum
canonicorum.’ Ibid. fol. 103.

” Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 604, 614, 714,
2465, 310, 3100, 311, 3114, 312, 338.

2 Mr. Leach’s suggestion that this appointment
showed that the prior was ‘the chief ecclesiastic of
the county’ (Visit. of Southwell, xxiv) is wide of the
mark ; such a position was burdensome and always
evaded if possible.

2 121 16

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

to £259 9s. 49d. The chief deductions were
for stipends paid by the priory to chantry priests
at Southwell, Newark, Ratcliffe on Soar, St.
Benedict’s Lincoln, and to two each at the
Derbyshire churches of Chesterfield and Crich.
There was also an annual charge of obligatory
alms, at the cost of £6 8s. 1d. distributed to the
poor in meat, beer, and bread on the obit of
Ralph Deincourt the founder, and on the four-
teen following days.

In 1209 Innocent III licensed the priory of
Thurgarton, in the event of a vacancy in the
cure of souls of any church belonging to them,
to appoint three or four of their canons, one of
whom was to be instituted to that church by the
bishop.14

Henry III in 1270 granted to the priory a
weekly market to be held on Tuesday, on their
manor of Fiskerton, and also a yearly fair there
on the feast of the Holy Trinity and the two
following days.’

In 1275 the prior claimed view of frank-
pledge in his manors of Thurgarton, Fiskerton,
Crophill, Owthorpe, Hickling, Granby, and
Sutton ; and assize of bread and ale in Hickling
and Harworth ; and that his villeins in Hawks-
worth, Granby, Cropwell Butler, Owthorpe,
Wiverton, and Tythby, should not do any suit
to the king’s wapentake court of Bingham, for
which they produced a charter of Henry III of
the year 1234. Other claims, all of which were
substantiated, were for right of gallows at Thur-
garton and for the recently granted market and
fair at Fiskerton.!®

Varying fragments of information can be
gleaned with regard to Thurgarton Priory from
the earlier episcopal registers at York.!”

In 1228 Archbishop Gray confirmed to the
canons the grant made by Roger son of William
of the advowson of the church of Hawton.¥
Seven years later the archbishop granted to the
priory of Thurgarton, to assist them in their
laudable hospitality, a pension of two bezants
(bisencios) out of Hawton rectory. In 1234
the archbishop confirmed to the same priory the
small pension of 35. 4d. out of the church of
Cotham.”

A strife of considerable duration between the
priory and canons of Thurgarton as rectors of

18 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 150-3.

M Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 34.

8 Chart. R. 54 Hen. III, m. 4.

6 Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 147, 414, 417,
418, 419, 422, 635. There are also numerous
references to the like claims in the Hundred Rolls.

7 The registers of Archbishops Gray and Giffard
have been printed by the Surtees Society. Through
the courtesy of Mr. W. Brown, hon. secretary of the
society, we have been able to consult proof sheets or
transcripts of the registers of Archbishops Wickwane
and Romanus.

3 York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 24.

8 Thid. fol. 68. ® Tbid. fol. 66.

Timberland of the one part, and the prior and
canons of St. Katherine’s, Lincoln, of the other
part, concerning the turbary tithes of Timber-
land, was amicably settled in 1245. The Lin-
coln priory agreed that in each year when they
dug turf in Timberland marsh they would give
12d. at Easter to the church of Timberland by
way of tithe for a certain piece of the marsh
pertaining to that church, but that no tithe was
to be expected from them for other carefully
defined parts of the marsh which had been
specially assigned to St. Katherine’s.”

About the same time another dispute between
the priory as rectors of Timberland with Simon
the vicar of Timberland and the priory of Kyme,
concerning tithes of wool and milk and of lambs
and calves of animals pasturing in the parish of
Timberland on lands which Walter son of
Walthof formerly held, was brought to a con-
clusion. The priory of Kyme covenanted to
pay to the church of Timberland 55. yearly as
wool tithe for each 100 sheep, and 5s. yearly for
each 100 lambs at the feast of St. Margaret, and
2d. for each cow and calf at Martinmas ; and
the priory of Thurgarton covenanted not to
exact any other small tithes from that land, nor
any share of wax-shot and blessed bread.”

The commuting of tithes in kind for a money
payment was fairly common in the 13th cen-
tury. Thus an agreement was entered into
between this priory and the hospital of St.
Sepulchre, Lincoln, whereby the brethren of the
latter house covenanted to pay to Thurgarton the
annual sum of 27s. in lieu of the tithes that
pertained to the churches of Kirkby and Scop-
wick for the lands which had been granted them
by the sonand grandson of the founder of Thur-
garton.”

Robert de Chesney, Bishop of Lincoln
1147-66, confirmed to the priory the churches
of Branston, Hanworth, Timberland, Blankney,
Scawby, Kirkby, and Swayfield, and a similar
confirmation act as to these seven churches was
executed by St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln 1186-
1200."

A dispute as to the church of Branston in
Lincoln diocese, which was brought to a head in
1236 by a papal decree, is dealt with at length
in the chartulary. The Prior and Convent of
Thurgarton sought from William de Marcham,
rector of Branston, § marks annually by way of
pension, which they had received of old from
that church, namely for the space of forty years
and more and which they alleged the rector had
detained for two years. The rector retorted
that if this payment had been made it was an
unjust action. The pope appointed as his com-
missioners the Abbot of De Pratis, the Dean of
Christianity, and the Master of the Schools of
Leicester, all of Lincoln diocese. The priory

"| Ibid. fol. 1044. * Thid. fol. 1054.
* Ibid. fol. 1324. * bid. fol. 1454.

122

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

produced five witnesses before the commission,
namely John their sub-prior, Ralph the cellarer,
Geoffrey de Hanworth, another of their canons,
George, who had been a priory servant for fifty
years, and Adam de Scawby, a very old layman,
who by their depositions most clearly (/ucu/enter)
proved that the priory had received the 5 marks
yearly for over forty years without any inter-
mission, namely from the days of Bishop Walter
de Coutances (1183-4) of good memory up to
the presentation of William de Marcham to the
rectory. Evidence was also forthcoming of the
formal confirmation of the pension of Bishop
Walter. The rector was ordered to refund to
Thurgarton the arrears of 10 marks, and hence-
forth punctually to pay the pension.”®

Archbishop Giffard (1265-79) confirmed to
the prior and canons of Thurgarton the churches
of Sutton in Ashfield, Granby, Tythby, Ow-
thorpe, Hoveringham, Hawksworth, and Key-
worth.”

Thurgarton Priory was personally visited by
Archbishop Wickwane (1279-86), with the
result that the following injunctions or correc-
tions were forwarded to the house on 8 June
1280: The prior was to be more discreet in
temporal matters and more moderate in his cor-
rections ; no base person, stranger, or layman was
to be admitted to the frater, and no one but the
physicians to the farmery; no drinking after
compline, save for some necessary cause or in-
firmity in the presence of the prior ; no letters
to be sealed but in full consent ; gifts to the
canons or lay brothers from their friends were to
go to the indigent or for common use ; silence
at proper times and places, according to rule, was
to be strictly observed ; canons not to go out of
cloister (save the obedientiaries), except by the
leave of the president ; alms (of food) were not
to be imprudently consumed, but warded for the
poor. Carols and lockers of the canons to be
opened thrice a year in the presence of the prior
and of two or three of the most trustworthy of
the canons, that the vice of private property
might be obliterated ; the lay brothers were to be
faithfully instructed in devotions and works of
merit ; the fasts were to be observed, and canons
serving outside the house not to be absent longer
than a fortnight. These injunctions were to be
publicly read in full chapter at the beginning of
each month.”

On 22 August 1284 the archbishop confirmed
the provision made by the Prior and Convent of
Thurgarton for Brother Robert de Barford, their
late prior. The ex-prior was to have suitable
good rooms in the priory where he could live
with one of the canons, an attendant and a boy,
who were to wait on him, as was seemly.
Provision was to be made daily for the ex-prior

* York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 1464.
* Ibid. Giffard, fol. 78.
7 Thid. Wickwane, fol. 137.

at the rate of one and a half canon’s portion,
Due provision both in board and clothing was also
to be made both for the attendant and the boy.
The ex-prior was himself to receive yearly two
marks for clothing, and he was to be excused
attending the divine offices whenever he de-
sired.”8

‘“Arduous and urgent business’ prevented
Archbishop Romayne, early in his episcopate,
from fulfilling an engagement to visit Thur-
garton Priory on 8 May 1286, and it was post-
poned to the 14th of the same month.” It was
as a consequence of this visit that Gilbert the
prior, who was accused of incontinence with a
married woman, formally purged himself of this
sin, publicly and solemnly, with his witnesses or
compurgators, before the archbishop on 19 May,
and was thereupon declared by his diocesan,
under his seal, to be of good fame.

In August of the same year an episcopal man-
date ordered Prior Gilbert to put Alexander de
Gedling, a canon of that house, to penance for
using opprobrious, presumptuous, noisy, and
scandalous language in a chapel of the house
where the convent daily assembled for the dis-
cussion of business.

About the same time the archbishop addressed
the Prior and Convent of Thurgarton with respect
to one of their canons, Simon de Lincoln, who
had been to Rome because of his faults and had
now returned. ‘They were ordered to receive
him back in charity and to consider his penance
at an end, save that he was not to be allowed to
leave the cloister without the president’s sanction.”

A request was addressed by Archbishop
Romanus in 1289 to Henry de Anra, the pro-
vincial prior of the Carmelites, to permit Richard
Maulovel, a fervently devout canon of Thur-
garton, of the order of St. Augustine, who desired
a stricter rule, to enter his order.*

In 1290 a scandal was caused at this house by
W. de Bingham, one of the canons, violently
assaulting John de Sutton, a clerk, in the con-
ventual church, for which he was sentenced to
the greater excommunication; his eventual
absolution was committed by the archbishop to
the prior.*#

On the resignation of Prior Robert de Baseford
in 1284 the convent elected two of their number
and presented them to Archbishop Romanus for
his choice, namely Alexander de Gedling and
Nicholas de Gameley ; but the archbishop passed
them both over and nominated Gilbert de
Ponteburg as prior.*° When Gilbert, however,
resigned the priorship he was succeeded by
Alexander de Gedling.

8 Tbid. fol. 54.

9 Ibid. Romanus, fol. 69.

89 Ibid. fol. 6g d. As to compurgation see p. 50.
3! Tbid. fol. 70. * Thid.

3 Tbid. fol. 74 d. 4 Thid. fol. 76.
85 Ibid. fol. 49. 86 Tbid. fol. 51.

123

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

On 17 October 1290 the episcopal licence
was issued to the sub-prior and convent to choose
a prior in the place of Gilbert de Ponteburg,
who had resigned. On 20 November the arch-
bishop quashed the election of Alexander de
Gedling as prior because of canonical informali-
ties in the form of procedure, but himself pro-
vided him to the office. He issued his mandate
to the sub-prior and convent to yield due
obedience to Alexander and to the archdeacon to
install him.”

In February 1292-3 an archiepiscopal man-
date was issued to the prior not to allow his
canons to go outside the priory precincts.*®

Notice of visitation of this priory on 14 January
1293-4 by the archbishop was given on the 6th
of the previous December.3? There are no con-
sequent injunctions registered, so it may be
assumed that all was well.

In February 1294-5 the prior and convent
received another letter relative to Richard
Maulovel, the canon who several years previously
had left this Austin house desirous of entering
one of a stricter rule. Since that time he had
been wandering about far and wide among
various religious houses under pretext of seeking
admission and then causing a scandal. The
priory were ordered to receive him back till he
found another house, but not to admit him to
the cloister.”

A letter was addressed by the archbishop in
September 1295 to the prior on behalf of Hugh
de Farndon, a canon of the house, who was in a
miserable plight, urging his readmission to under-
go due penance.*!

In 1304 the prior was admonished by Arch-
bishop Greenfield to resign, but the convent
besought that he might be retained, pleading the
expense of a new election. Some of the canons
sent a letter to this effect to the diocesan, but it
lacked the common seal. The archbishop
ordered them to hold an election, and their choice
fell on John de Hikeling. The archbishop,
however, quashed this election on the ground of
informality, and the convent then chose John de
Ruddeston. This election was also quashed on
the like grounds, but the archbishop duly collated
Ruddeston to the office, as he thought him a
worthy man.”

In 1312 Archbishop Greenfield absolved
Walter Bingham from being Prior of St. Oswald
(Nostell), and he returned to the monastery of
Thurgarton, of which he was a canon.

Archbishop Greenfield, 1311, sanctioned the
appropriation to this priory of the churches of
Thurgarton, Owthorpe, Tythby, Hoveringham,
Sutton, and Granby.*

7 York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 76d.

% Ibid. fol. 79. % Ibid. fol. 83.
“ Ttid. fol. 84. " Tbid. fol. 84d.
“ Harl. MS. 6970, fol. ror.

“ Ibid. fol. 1300. “ Thid. fol. 1464.

The church of Cotham was appropriated to
Thurgarton Priory by the archbishop’s licence on
1 July 1350, the plea being the poverty of the
house through the ravages of the plague. The
archbishop was careful to secure for himself and
his successors a pension from the church of 4
marks, and another of 2 marks for the chapter of
York.

Boniface IX in 1402 granted power to the
prior and convent and their successors to rent,
let, farm, or sell to clerks or laymen all fruits,
tithes, and oblations of churches, chapels, and
other possessions without requiring the licence of
ordinaries.“6 In December of the same year
the priory obtained an indult from the pope to
have made anew in their dormitory as many cells
as might be expedient for the sleeping of their
canons; such cells, when made, were not to be
changed in the future.*”

The same pope in 1403 granted the petition of
the priory that—as they were bound to find and
keep at their own cost a secular priest and to
depute a canon of their house to celebrate at
certain altars in the priory church for the souls
of Thomas Horoft (sic) and Walter de Elineton,
laymen, who were buried therein—the prior and
his successors might depute at pleasure, for these
celebrations, two secular priests or two canons of
the priory in priests’ orders.*8

Licence was granted in 1431 for Alice widow
of Sir William Deyncourt to found a perpetual
chantry for daily celebration at the altar of St.
Anne in the conventual church of St. Peter,
Thurgarton, for the good estate of the king and
the founder and their souls after death, and for
the souls of the said William and of John
Deyncourt, knight, and Jean his wife, and of
Alice’s relatives and friends, and for all the faith-
ful departed. ‘The chaplain to receive a yearly
rental of 100s., and the advowson of the chantry
to be in the hands of the Prior and Convent of
Thurgarton.*®

The Prior of Thurgarton by an old-established
custom had a right to a stall in the quire of the
great collegiate church of Southwell, and_ this
would carry with it, we suppose, a right toa
seat in the chapter-house. The origin of this is
not known with any precision. Mr. Leach
says: ‘How or when the prior got in is a
mystery,’ and suggests that it may have originated
as a matter of courtesy, in 1225, in return for
the priory having given up Rolleston Church to
the archbishop for Southwell. ‘This is probably
the solution of the difficulty ; but it is much
more likely that the seat was at that time de-
finitely assigned to the prior as a part of the

* Tbid. 6971, fol. 1114.

“ Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 510.

“ Thid. 546.

“ Ibid. 6or,

124

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

bargain about Rolleston Church rather than as
an act of mere courtesy.

The royal visitors Legh and Layton visited
Thurgarton in 1536, where they surpassed them-
selves in the wholesale character of their hideous
charges. Out of the comparatively small number
of canons of this house, they actually stated that
ten were guilty of unnatural offences, that the
prior had been incontinent with several women,
and six others with both married and single women.
They also stated that eight of the canons desired
to be released from their vows. They further
recorded that a pilgrimage was held here to St.
Ethelburg, but so little acquaintance had they
with hagiology that they described this well-
known lady saint as a man—ad Sanctum Ethel-
burgum. The annual income was returned at
£240."

On the resignation of Prior Thomas Dethick
in February 1537 a congé d’élire was granted
by the Crown to the sub-prior and convent to
hold a new election. Their choice fell on John
Berwick.”

Dr. Legh, who had made such a string of
appalling charges against the Thurgarton canons,
wrote to Cromwell on 12 June 1538, to the
effect that he had just succeeded in carrying out
the dissolution of the monastery of Halesowen
and was setting out for this Nottinghamshire
house. Two days later the surrender of
Thurgarton Priory was signed by John Berwick,
prior, William Chace, sub-prior, and by seven
other canons, namely John Kampney, John
Longeyscare, John Ryley, Richard Leykes,
Robert » Henry Gaskyn, and Richard
Hopkyn.**

Legh, who received the surrender, tarried
some days at Thurgarton. On 16 June he
wrote from the dissolved priory to Wriothesley,
telling him that he had accomplished his desires
with regard to Mr. Cooper.”

The following pensions were granted to this
house on 23 July 1539 :—John Berwick, prior,
a house called Fiskerton Hall, with a chapel in
the house, a garden, a stable called ‘le mares
stable,’ tithes of hay of two meadows, and £40
a year; Richard Hopkyn, sub-prior, £6 135. 44.5
and John Ryley, Henry Gaskyn, John Langes-
kar, Robert Cant, Richard Leke, John Champ-
ney, and William Chace, canons, £5 each.

It is noteworthy that Richard Hopkyn, who,
according to Legh and Layton, was a confessed
adulterer, obtained the highest pension, and
among those in receipt of a pension of {5 appears
the name of Richard Leke who was entered on both
the black lists of the commissioners.

5, and P. Hen. VIII, x, 364.

52 Pat. 28 Hen. VIII, pt. iii, m. 31.
8 7. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (1), 1172.
4 Dep Keeper's Rep. viii, App. ii, 45.
55 1, and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (1), 1184.
5 Aug, Off. Bks. ccxxxii (2), fol. 56-7.

Priors OF THURGARTON

Thomas, occurs c. 1190

Henry, 1209 ; 8 occurs 1218

William, occurs 1234-45

Richard, occurs 1250-7 *

Adam, occurs 1263-76 ®

Robert de Baseford, resigned 1284 ®

Gilbert de Ponteburg, 1284—go “

Alexander de Gedling, 1290-1304 ®

John de Ruddeston, 1304-19 ©

John de Hikeling, 1319-31 ©

Robert de Hathern, 1331-7 ®

John de Ruddeston, re-elected 1337-8 ®

Richard de Thurgarton, 1338-45

Robert de Hickling, 1345-9”

Robert de Claxton, 1349 7

John de Calveton, died 1381 %

William de Saperton, 1381

Robert de Wolveden, occurs 14.32 ; ” resigned
143478

Richard Haley, 1434.7

William Bingham, 1471-7 7

Richard Thurgarton, died 149}

John Allestre, 1494 ®

John Goverton, 1505 ®!

John Angear, 1517-34 ”

Thomas Dethick, 1534-6

John Berwick, 1536 ™

10. THE PRIORY OF WORKSOP

The priory of Worksop for Austin Canons,
according to an old chronicle cited by Dugdale,
was first founded, probably after a humble
fashion, by William de Lovetot in the year
1103.

The fuller endowment charter of Worksop
Priory is in the hands of Colonel Henry Mellish
of Hodsock Priory.? By this charter, of the

7 Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 63.
58 Willis, Mitred Abbeys.
8 Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 81.
6 Thid. fol. 82, 83, 88.
$1 Ibid. fol. 84, 86, 87, 89.
Ibid. fol. 85, 86, 89, go.
3 Ibid. 6970, fol. 674.

Thid. fol. 734, 804.

6 Tbid. fol. 84, Tol.

Ibid. fol. ror; 6972, fol. 224,

87 Thid. fol. 224. 23. 8 Tbid. fol. 23.
Tbid. 7 Ibid. fol. 23, 25.
1 Thid. fol. 25. 7 Thid.

73 Ibid. fol. 29.

% Ibid. 6971, fol. 74.

% Thid. 6972, fol. 35.

7 Thid.

79 Thid. fol. 37.

8! Ibid. fol. 49.

88 Thid. fol. 535.

1 Dugdale, Mon. vi, 118.

2 Thoroton Soc. (1905), ix, 83-9, where the charter
is given in facsimile.

™ Thid.

78 Thid. fol. 41-2.

8 Ibid. fol. 4.34.

® Ibid. fol. 51, 535.

* Thoroton, Notts. 305.

125

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

reign of Henry I, c. 1130, William de Lovetor,
with the assent of his wife Emma and of his
sons (Richard and Nigel) granted to God
and the Holy Church and to the canons of St.
Cuthbert of Worksop all the chapel furniture
(capellaria) of his house, with the tithes and
oblations ; the church of Worksop, where the
canons were, with lands and tithes and all that
pertained to the church ; the fish-pond and mill
and meadow near the church; the whole tithe
of his customary rents, both in Normandy and
England; acarucate of landin Worksop field, ad
inwara(m),> and his meadow at ‘Cathale’; all
his churches of the honour of Blyth, namely,
those of Gringley, Misterton, Walkeringham,
Normanton, Car Colston, Willoughby, Wysall,
and portion of the church of Treswell, with all
tithes, lands, and possessions belonging to these
churches ; the tithes of his pannage, honey,
venison, fish, and fowl ; and the tithes of malt
and of his mills, and of all his possessions from
which tithe was wont or ought to be given.

This charter was confirmed by his eldest son
Richard de Lovetot, who also added valuable
grants of his own, including half the church of
Clarborough ; two bovates of land in Hardwick
Grange, near Clumber, ad utwara(m) ;4 the whole
site of the town of Worksop near the church,
inclosed by a great ditch as far as Bracebridge
meadow ; also without the ditch, a mill, mansion,
and Buselin’s meadow ; other moist lands on the
north by the water ; and from the water by the
road under the gallows towards the south,
marked out by crosses set up by himself and his
son; a mill with fish-stew at Manton; and all
Sloswick. By the same charter Richard also
confirmed grants by his mother Emma of a mill
at Bolam, an oxgang at Shireoaks, various other
lands at Hayton, Rampton, Normanton, and
Tuxford, and the church and two oxgangs at
Car Colston. He further granted to the canons
the privileges of feeding as many pigs as they
possessed in Rumwood, and of having two wa-
gons for the collecting of all the dry wood they
required in the park of Worksop. Finally he
confirmed the grant of land in Thorpe by Walter
and Roger de Haier. The date of this long
and important charter is about 1160. The
charter itself was laid on the altar of the priory
church by Richard de Lovetot and his son
William.®

3 This phrase, which is of extreme rarity, means
that the land to which it is applied was appropriated
to the service of the house that received the grant, in
contrast to land ad utearam, from which service was
due to the king. ‘The two bovates which Richard de
Lovetot granted to the priory in Hardwick Grange
(see below) were to be held ad urwaram. See
Athenaeum, 24 June 1905, for the employment of
these terms.

‘ See above, note 3.

5 Dugdale, Mon. vi, 118-19; Thoroton, Nofts. iii,
386-7.

Richard’s wife Cecilia gave, as her gift to the
priory, the church of ‘Dinsley,’ Yorkshire,*
(Over or Low Dinsdale).

These various grants to the priory were con-
firmed in 1161 by Alexander III, ina bull giving
the canons the privileges of exemption from
tithes, presentation to their churches, burial
rights for all persons save the excommunicate,
and leave to celebrate mass at a time of general
interdict in a low voice with closed doors and
silenced bells.’

The third great benefactor was William de
Lovetot, the son of Richard and Cecilia. On
the day of his father’s funeral he gave to God,
St. Mary, St. Cuthbert, and the canons of Rad-
ford® or Worksop, the tithes of all the rents he
then had or ever should have on this side of the
sea or beyond it. He died in 1181, his wife
Maud daughter of Walter Fitz Robert being but
twenty-four years of age, and leaving a daughter of
the same name, aged seven, as heiress. This great
heiress was eventually given in marriage to '
Gerard de Furnival, who joined the Crusades
and died at Jerusalem in 1219. Gerard slightly
increased the grants to the priory, allowing the
canons the privilege of pasturing forty cattle in
Worksop Park between Easter and Michaelmas.®
His widow Maud, who survived him several
years, granted a full charter of confirmation in
the year 1249 with one or two small additions,
such as a wood in Welham and further property
in Gringley.”

Thomas de Furnival, the eldest son of Gerard
and Maud, was slain in Palestine in the lifetime
of his mother; his son Gerard gave the third
part of his mills at Bradfield tothe priory. This
Gerard died childless, and was succeeded by his
brother Thomas.”

The Prior of Worksop in 1269 brought an
action against Thomas de Furnival because there
had been so much waste, sale, and destruction of
timber in Worksop Park that there was not a
sufhciency of dry wood for his two wagons
according to old covenant.”

It would seem, however, that peace was
quickly made between the litigants, for in the
following year, when Thomas de Furnival
obtained licence to build a castle on his manor of
Sheffield, he agreed with the canons of Worksop
to provide him with two chaplains and a clerk at

* White, Worksop, 25.

” Dugdale, Mon. vi, 120.

* The priory stood a little to the east of Worksop
proper, in the district called Radford, and hence not
infrequently bore the latter name. The stream
which is now known as the River Ryton, from a vil-
lage on its banks, was commonly in mediaeval times
called the water of Radford.

*"Lhoroton, Notts. ili, 388.

* Dugdale, Mon. vi, 119-20.

4 White, Worksop, 29.

* Thoroton, Nofss. iii, 389.

126

RELIGIOUS

his castle, to whom he engaged to pay 5 marks
a year.

The Quo Warranto Rolls of the beginning of
the reign of Edward I show that the Prior of
Worksop had no difficulty in establishing the
freedom of his men from tolls, passage, pontage,
and all manor of customs before juries of the
counties of Nottingham, York, and Derby, by
the production of a charter of Henry I granting
them these exemptions throughout the whole of
England. He also maintained his rights to free
warren on the Nottinghamshire manors of Wal-
keringham, Hardwick, and Shireoaks, and on the
Derbyshire manor of Brampton ; as well as to
the amercement of his own tenants at Worksop
for breaking the assize of bread and ale."

The Taxation Roll of 1291 yields a total ot
£71 65. 8d. as the income of Worksop Priory,
namely £40 for temporalities, all within the
county; {10 out of Sheffield rectory; the
appropriated churches of Normanton £12, and
of Burton £8 ; and pensions from the churches
of Car Colston 6s. 8d., and Willoughby 20s.¥

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 sets forth the
annual value of the temporalities in the counties
of Nottingham, York, Derby, and Lincoln, as
£156 8s.; whilst the appropriated Nottingham-
shire churches of Worksop, Walkeringham,
Gringley, Sutton, Normanton, Burton, Osberton,
Car Colston, Willoughby, Wysall, and Screveton,
with pensions from the Derbyshire church of
Clowne, the Lincolnshire church of Rushton,
and the Yorkshire church of Wickersley, together
with a third part of the rectory of Sheffield
(£5 6s. 8d.), yielded £145 18s. 10d. This gave
a total value of £302 6s. 10d. But the clear
value was reduced to £239 15s. 5d. There
were various pensions paid to York for appro-
priations. The obligatory alms also involved a
considerable annual charge. The distribution
to the poor at Christmas in commemoration of
William Lovetot the founder was on an un-
usually large scale, costing in wheat and rye
bread and in beer £9 16s. 4d. The prior’s dish
of meat given every day cost £3 a year, and
the Lady dish another £3; whilst the canons’
dish, which had been given every day in the
chapter-house since the foundation of the priory,
cost £4 a year. Other gifts in kind, as the obits
of priors and benefactors came round, cost £5 ;
and there were also ‘two pyes of the pytaunce
gevven in almes to poore people, vs.’ ¥°

There are various entries pertinent to this
priory in the earlier episcopal registers of York.
In 1227 a contention arose as to the church or
chapel of Osberton between the Prior and Con-

3 Pat. 54 Hen. III, m. 31.

“ Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 161, 221, 627,
651.

% Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 2994, 3104, 311,
3114, 312, 338.

16 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 174-6.

HOUSES

vent of Worksop and Robert son of William.
An inquisition was held by the Archdeacon of
Nottingham, whereupon Archbishop Gray de-
clared that it had been made plain that the church
of Osberton was a chapel of Worksop and be-
longed to the priory there, although it had been
alienated for some time, and he therefore allowed
them to convert it to their own uses for the
support of the poor, after the death of the clerk
who then held it.””

The prior and canons in 1234 obtained the
archbishop’s sanction to appropriate to their own
uses, especially in the exercise of hospitality,
the church of West Burton, of which they had
the advowson.!8

In 1276 Alan de London, one of the canons
of Worksop, was instituted to the vicarage of the
church of Worksop by Archbishop Giffard, on
the presentation of the prior and convent of the
same ; Alan swore obedience only to the arch-
bishop.

Archbishop Wickwane visited Worksop Priory
on 26 May 1280, with the result that the fol-
lowing injunctions were subsequently issued :
The prior was not to permit the holding of any
private property, and to forbid all going outside
the gates of the priory save for some inevitable
and necessary cause. All lockers of the canons
were to be opened four times a year and oftener
if there was any cause, anything found therein
to be applied to the common use of the monas-
tery ; the canons were not to go out alone, when
there was necessity for leaving the house ; idle
canons lingering without cause in the farmery
were to be treated as paupers and otherwise
punished ; two canons in particular, Robert de
Sancto Botulfo and Peter de Retford, were to
be removed from the farmery and to consort
with the convent; Adam de Rotherham, the
late cellarer, to stay in the cloister and do
penance; the sick to be kindly treated ; all
sinister and unfitting speech forbidden ; no canon
or brother to eat and drink with any outside
guest, unless the prior was present ; silence to be
strictly observed according to rule; alms not to
be wasted; the entertaining of costly and useless
guests forbidden ; William Selliman, a rebellious
and quarrelsome canon, and William de Grave
and Henry de Marcham, two lay brothers, ac-
cused of incontinence, to be punished. These
rules were to be read in chapter once a month.”

John de Tykill, Prior of Worksop, had three
canons of his monastery deputed by the arch-
bishop in 1311 to act as his coadjutors. At the
visitation of 1313 he was found guilty of incon-
tinence and maladministration, and was ree
moved.”

York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 17.
18 Thid. fol. 66.

#0 Ibid. Wickwane, fol. 136 d.

" Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 11.

1297

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

An inspfeximus and confirmation charter of
1316 recites, inter alia, a grant of Henry III in
1268 to the priory to take two cart-loads daily
of heather in Sherwood Forest, not to exceed
the annual value of 605., in consideration of the
loss sustained in their wood of Grove, which
Edward the king’s eldest son had caused to be
felled in the time of trouble in the realm to
make engines and other necessaries to invade the
Isle of Axholme, then resisting the king.** The
cart-loads were only to be taken in two places,
namely in Rumwood and ‘Cuthesland.’ At
the same time the appropriation of the church of
Sutton on Trent, originally granted in 1302,
was confirmed.”

In 1316 licence was granted for the appropria-
tion of the church of Car Colston.™

Edward I had granted the Prior and Convent
of Worksop 60 acres in the east part of his wood
of Rumwood ata rental of 10s., and to inclose and
bring it into cultivation if they thought fir. But
in 1335 they complained to Edward III that
after they had inclosed it Ralph de Nevill and
his fellow justices of the forest took the whole
site into the king’s hands on a presentment by
the forest ministers, alleging that they had in-
closed more than the 60 acres, and demanding a
further rental of 2s. 2d. for an additional 13 acres.
The king, willing to show the canons a special
favour, in return for the manifold charges they
had frequently incurred when he visited their
priory, granted them the whole space they had
inclosed free of all rent for ever.”

In 1338 there was an inspeximus and confir-
mation of the charter to the priory executed by
Thomas de Furnival III, the great man of that
great family, who was summoned as a baron to
Parliament from 1294 till his death in 1332.
Almost the only addition that this baron made
to the grants of his ancestors was that he gave
permission to the convent to have free ingress
and egress to his park to look after the forty
cattle of the priory feeding there between Easter
and Michaelmas.”

In 1384 the priory paid the heavy sum of
£40 to William de Nevill, keeper of the king’s
manor house of Clipston in Sherwood Forest,
for its repair, in return for which they obtained
the Crown licence to appropriate the church of
Willoughby.”

In the following year 25 marks were paid to
the king by the priory to secure the alienation
to them of five messuages and a moiety of three
more messuages in East Retford, the joint gift of

” This refers to the defence of Axholme by the
remnants of Simon de Montfort’s party at the close of
the Barons’ War.

* Pat. g Edw. I], pt. ii, m. 36.

* Pat. ro Edw. II, pt. i, m. 31.

* Pat. g Edw. III, pt. i, m. 25.

* Pat. 11 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 25.

* Pat. 7 Ric. I, pt. ii, m. 3.

Richard de Rawclyf, rector of Clowne, William
de Burgh, rector of Babworth, and Peter Cook,
chaplain, towards finding a chaplain to celebrate
daily in the priory for their good estate and for
their souls after death.”

This priory was subjected in 1536 to a visit
from the notorious commissioners, Legh and
Layton. They affected to have discovered four
canons guilty of unnatural sin ; one desired re-
lease from his vows. The annual income was
declared to be £240 and the debts 200 marks.”

Sir John Hercy, writing to Cromwell on 31
October 1538, remarked that ‘the prior and con-
vent of Worksop are so covetous, they sell flocks
of sheep, kye, corn, woods, etc.’ ®° And who
can blame them? They clearly foresaw their
overthrow. On 15 November of the same year
came the surrender of the priory with sixteen
signatures. We give the names of those who
signed, adding the amount of pensions they ob-
tained on 25 March 1539;*' all the four accused
by Legh and Layton obtained their pensions.

Thomas Stokkes, prior . £50
William Nutte, sub-prior . £6
Thomas Richardson LS 65. 8d.

William Inghame . . . 2.) 4g yy gy

George Copley . £6
*Richard Astley L6

Laurence Starkebone - £5 6s. 8d.
*Alexander Boothe . . . . . G5) Loan. Xba
*Thomas Bedall . . . . . Spe gins UK
*George Barnsley . . . . 1) yy yy gy

Edmund Robinson. . . . . 4, yy
James Windebank L4

Robert Armstead . 2. . 1. wg,

John Hayles. a? is 405.

Christopher Haslam . . . . ,,

Willam White. . . . . .) ,,

The four canons to whose names an asterisk
is prefixed are those so foully branded in the
Comperta.

In November 1541 Henry VIII granted the
priory of Worksop and divers parcels of demesne
lands, &c., to Francis, fifth Earl of Shrewsbury,
in exchange for the manor of Farnham Royal,
Buckinghamshire.”

There is in the British Museum a cast from
a damaged impression of the seal of Henry, prior
temp. John. It is a pointed oval, and bears the
prior standing on a platform, lifting the right
hand in benediction, and holding in the left a
scroll inscribed CIA DEI. The legend
is :—

HENRICI . PRIORIS . DE. WIR. ....

* Pat. 8 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 5.

” L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 364.

“Ibid. xiii (2), 726.

™ Dep. Keeper's Rep. viii, App. ii, 50; L. and P.
VIII, xiv (1), 185; Aug. Off. Bks. CCXXXiii,
163-5.

* Pat. 33 Hen. VIII, pt. iv, m. 6.

128

% %

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Priors or Worksop

William de Huntingdon, first prior
William, 1180 *

Stephen, c. 1196 %

Henry, 1200 *

Walter, occurs c. 1230 7

Robert de Pikebow, 1260 88

J., occurs 1267 ®

Alan de London, resigned 1300 ®

John de Tykill, 1303, also occurs 1311 and

1313%

HOUSE OF PREMONSTRATENSIAN

11, THE ABBEY OF WELBECK

Joceus de Flemmaugh is said to have formed
one of the train of William of Normandy at the
time of the Conquest ; he acquired the third
part of a knight’s fee in Cuckney. Joceus begat
a son named Richard who married a Nottingham
lady. There was living in Cuckney a man
called Gamelbere,! described as a ‘dreng,’ who
held, before the Conquest, two carucates of land
of the king in chief by the service of providing
a palfrey for the king, shod on its four feet at
the king’s forge, whenever he visited his manor
of Mansfield, and by attending him in the time
of war. Gamelbere died without heir, and
his land escheated to King Henry I. The
king gave this land to Richard the son of
Joceus. Richard had a son of the like name
by his first wife, and on her death he took
for a second wife Avice, a kinswoman of Earl
Ferrers, granting her as dower the two caru-

cates of land at Cuckney. By his second wife’

Richard had a son called Thomas. Thomas
was brought up in the king’s court, and on his
father’s death inherited the two carucates.
Thomas is described as a most warlike man, who
followed the king (Stephen) throughout his cam-
paigns ; but when there was peace in the king-
dom, in the reign of Henry II, founded the
abbey of Welbeck.?

This is the first part of the account set forth
at length towards the end of the Welbeck char-

33 White, Worksop, 33. Signs, as ‘ William,’ the foun-
dation charter of Welbeck Abbey.

% Thid. % Tbid.

37 Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 3.

3 White, Worksop, 33.

%® Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 2. “Ibid fol. 7.

“| Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 146 ; ibid. 6972, fol. 11.

” Tbid. White, Worksop, 33.

“ Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 74. * Thid.

46 Bodl. Chart. Notts. no. 10; Harl. MS. 6972,

%8 Ibid.

fol. 31.
4” Ibid. “Thid. fol. 45.
“ Thid. °° Ibid. fol. 46.

53) Vglor Eccl, (Rec. Com.), v, 174.

2 129

Robert de Carlton, 1313 #

John, 1396 %

Roger de Upton, died 1404 “4

John de Leghton, 1404*

Charles Flemmyng, occurs 1458, resigned
1463 %

William Acworth, 1463 47

Robert Ward, occurs 1486, died 1518 ®

Robert Gateford, 1518 #

Nicholas Storth, 1522

Thomas Stokkes, occurs 1535 ™

CANONS

tulary as to the history of the foundation and of
the founder’s ancestry and progeny ; but it repre-
sents a very confused tradition as to the origin of
the house, for another shorter account, which
immediately follows, makes Richard the son of
Joceus the original founder of the abbey.? This
latter statement is nearer the truth, for the abbey
was begun by Richard in 1153, and finished
by his son Thomas in the reign of Henry IT; 4
but, even so, the fact remains that ‘ Joceus’
cannot be identified in the more authentic re-
cords of the period to which this tradition would
assign him.

Nevertheless, as Thomas carried out and ful-
filled his father’s intentions with definite endow-
ments, he is generally regarded as the founder ;
but it was in his father’s lifetime that a colony
of Premonstratensian canons from the abbey of
Newhouse, Lincolnshire, established themselves
in this north-west corner of the county of Not-
tingham. Thomas’s charter, addressed to Roger,
Archbishop of York, and to all faithful sons of
the Church, sets forth that he has granted to
Berengarius, Abbot of Welbeck, and his successors,
by the counsel of Serlo, Abbot of Newhouse, the
site of the abbey of Welbeck, where the church
of St. James is founded, and all the land from
that site to the place called Belph, between the
rivulet and the wheel road (vam quadrigarum)
from the abbey to Belph. He also granted all
the meadows, pastures, groves, and cultivated
ground in Belph, and all his adjacent wood-

1 The name is pure Danish ; see /.C.H. Notts. i, 243,
where also reference is made to the significance of the
title ‘dreng.’

? Harl. MS. 3640, fol. 160-1. This MS. is a valuable
but irregular and imperfect register or chartulary of
Welbeck Abbey of 175 folios, in hands of the end of
the 13th and of the 14th and 15th centuries ; itis the
one cited by Thoroton in his history of the county,
but parts are missing since that date. Harl. MS.
5374, fol. 1-18, contains a number of excerpts from
Lord Chesterfield’s chartulary of this abbey relative
to benefactions of the de Vylers family, of Lincoln.

3 Harl. MS. 3640, fol. 161 d, 162.

*Ashm. MS. 1519, cited in Dugdale, Mon. vi, 872-

17:

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

land where Geoffrey and Hugh and Drenghe
dwelt ; together with the church of St. Mary
of Cuckney, the church of St. Helen of Etwall
(Derbyshire), and the church of St John Baptist
of Whitton (Lincolnshire), the mill of Langwith,
all his lands at Hirst, and common pasture
throughout his demesnes. The charter concludes
with the statement that all this was done with
the assent of Emma his wife and of his three
brothers, Ralph, Silvan, and Richard. The first
of a large group of witnesses is William, Prior of
Radford (Worksop).§

Thomas son of Richard had by his wife Emma
a daughter Isabel. After her father’s death Isabel
was a royal ward and given in marriage by the
king to Simon son of Simon. This Simon and
his wife gave the mill of Cuckney to the abbey.®
To Simon and Isabel were born three daughters,
Agnes, Isabel, and Petronilla, who were respec-
tively married to Walter de Falcomburg, Walter
de Riboef, and Stephen de Falcomburg. These
three heiresses and their husbands confirmed to
the abbot and canons all the gifts they had re-
ceived from their ancestors.

From their heirs and descendants, John Hot-
ham, Bishop of Ely, 30 September 1329, bought
the whole manor of Cuckney, together with other
lands and advowsons of the abbey.’ On 4
December following the Bishop of Ely granted
to the abbey the whole manor of Cuckney, to-
gether with the towns or hamlets of Cuckney,
Langwith, Bonbusk, Holbeck, Woodhouse, Miln-
thorpe, Clowne, and Norton by Cuckney.8 On
9 December John de Nottingham, Abbot of Wel-
beck, entered into a composition with the Bishop
of Ely, whereby the abbey undertook to add at
least eight canons to their number, whose special
duty it should be to act as chantry priests in
saying masses for the king and his royal ancestry,
for Bishop Hotham and his parents, and for other
specified benefactors or relatives. It was coven-
anted that the Abbot of Newhouse, their father
abbot, should always at his annual visitation in-
quire into the due observance of this com-
position.®

A memorandum in an early hand in the midst
of the Welbeck chartulary briefly records the
fact that the church of Whitton, Lincolnshire,
was dedicated by Robert, Bishop of Bangor, on
27 April, when he consecrated three altars,
namely the high altar in honour of St. John
Baptist, the altar in the body of the church
(in corpore ecclesie) in honour of the Blessed Mary
the Mother of God, and the altar in the north
aisle in honour of St. Mary Magdalene.”
Robert de Shrewsbury was Bishop of Bangor
irom 1197 to 1215. The following are among
the more important entries from the chartulary,

5 Harl. MS. 3640, fol. 38.
6 Tbid.

8 Ibid. fol. 150.

7Ibid fol. 148.
®*Thid. fol. 147.

the episcopal registers at York, and other sources,
relative to other property of the abbey, both in
temporalities and spiritualities :

Richard de Furnival released all his right in
the chapel of Bothamsall to the abbey of Welbeck,
acknowledging it to belong to the mother church
of Elkesley in the abbey’s patronaze.”

Robert de Meinill, lord of Whitwell, Derby-
shire, gave to the canons a quarry on his land,
wherever most convenient, for building the
church of St. James and the necessary buildings,
with free ingress and egress for those thus
engaged. Walter de Goushill also granted a
quarry for the like purpose on the moor between
Whitwell and Belph, or elsewhere in the common
pastures of Whitwell parish, after the same manner
as had been done by his ancestor Robert de
Meinill.”

Roger Deincourt gave to the church of
Welbeck, for the sustenance of three canons who
were to specially celebrate for himself and his
family, all his lands and meadows and right of
pasture except the advowson of the church in
North Wingfield, Derbyshire. This gift was
confirmed by John Deincourt, rector of North
Wingfield, Roger’s brother.”

In 1213 the Abbot of Welbeck brought the
king four palfreys to secure his confirmation of
the gift of the church of Flintham, together with
lands and tenements at the same place, which
Agatha daughter and heiress of Hugh Bretel had
madetothe abbey.'* This Agatha was first married
to Geoffrey Monachus, and afterwards to Hum-
phrey, King John’s cook. ‘The gift wasaccom-
panied by pasture rights for 300 sheep at Flint-
ham.”

Geoffrey, Archbishop of York (1191-1212),
sanctioned the appropriation of the church of
Whitton to the abbey, providing that a third part
of the income was to be assigned to the vicar as
a competency.”

A fine was levied in 1204 between Richard,
Abbot of Welbeck, and Alexander, Prior of Shel-
ford, whereby it was arranged that the advowson
of the church of Kelham was to be held in
moieties between them.”

A royal grant was made to the church of
Welbeck in 1250 of 5 acres and a rood of
inclosure in the Peak Forest at ¢Cruchill,’ to be
held by rendering 21d. yearly at the Exchequer ;
also a grant of the pasture of ‘ Cruchill,’ by the
wood of Ashop and up the valley to Derwent-
head, and also of all the pasture of Ashop up that
water to its head, and thence to Kendalhead,
which pasture the canons held by a charter of
King John.”

" Thoroton, Notts. 444.

” Harl. MS. 3640, fol. 164.

8 Ibid. fol. 164d. “Pipe R. 14 John.
Thoroton, Nofts. 133.

6 Thid. 143. "Ibid. 331.
Chart. 35 Hen. III, m. 13.

130

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

The abbot succeeded in 1276 in maintaining
his rights to freedom from passage and pontage
dues, and from all manner of hundred and other
court contributions, &c., as well as rights of free
warren on his Derbyshire estates at Duckmanton,
North Wingfield, Newbold, and Cresswell, and
the like over all his numerous Nottinghamshire
possessions, by the production of early charters.'®

Grant of free warren was obtained or confirmed
by the Abbot and Convent of Welbeck in 1291
throughout all their demesne lands in the
counties of Nottingham, Derby, and Lincoln.”

A considerable and long-sustained controversy
was maintained in the reign of Henry III and in
the days of Abbot Hugh between the abbey of
Welbeck and the burgesses of Retford as to the
mills of that town ; eventually in 1297 the mills
were taken into the king’s hands and granted to
the abbey at {10 a year.”

In 1299 the Archdeacon of Nottingham
resigned into the hands of the Archbishop of York
the presentation to the church of Elkesley which
he had received from the abbot and canons of
Welbeck.”

There are various entries in the chartulary as
to the rights of the abbey in Sherwood Forest,
and perambulations both of Sherwood and of the
Peak Forests in the reign of Edward I are
recorded.” In 1307 the abbey obtained leave
from the Crown, on paying a fine of 200 marks,
to break and inclose and make a park of 60 acres
in Rumwood. The site is described as lying
between the park of Thomas de Furnival and
the abbot’s wood, extending by the highway
that led from Worksop to Warsop.”

The church of Elkesley was appropriated to the
abbey in December 1348. In giving his sanction
Archbishop Thoresby provided that 10s. was to
be paid annually by Welbeck to the quire deacons
of York Minster.”

The church of Flintham was appropriated to
the abbey in 1389: at the date when Archbishop
Richard le Scrope sanctioned this appropriation
the abbot’s chair was vacant, and William Staveley
was prior.”6

According to the ‘Taxation Roll of Pope
Nicholas in 1291, the temporalities of this abbey
in the three counties of Nottingham, Derby,
and Lincoln yielded an annual income of
£56135. 10d.; whilst the spiritualities produced
a further income of £52, namely the church of
Whatton £30, the church of Cuckney £20, and
a pension from the church of Rawmarsh in the
deanery of Doncaster 40s. The total income
recorded amounts to £108 135. 104.77

19 Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 138, 147, 613.

0 Chart. 19 Edw. I, m. ii.

"1 Harl. MS. 3640, fol. 23d-25. ™ Ibid. fol. 16.

3 Ibid. fol. 16d, 17, 20. * Thid. fol. 29d, 30.

*Thid. 6971, fol. r1o. 6 Thid. 102 d.

5” Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec Com.), 72, 265, 2994, 311,
3110, 312, 321, 333-

A taxation roll entered in the chartulary of
only two years’ later date shows a considerable
increase in income over that just recorded, making
the total £140 18s. 2d. The increase chiefly
arises from the rectories of Littleborough (Notts.),
£3 65.8d. ; of Etwall and Duckmanton, Derby-
shire, which are respectively entered as yielding
incomes of £16 os. 2d. and {5 6s. 8d. ; and of
Whitton and Coates, Lincolnshire, with the
respective incomes of £18 6s. 8d. and £3.%
It would therefore appear that these five churches
were appropriated to the abbey between 1291
and 1293.

A later hand has added the annual value of
later appropriations, namely Flintham £30, and
Elkesley rectory 38 marks, and the vicarage
6 marks.”

The return as to Welbeck in the Valr Eccle-
siasticus of 1534 possesses much interest. The
office of the general visitorship of the Premonstra-
tensian Order in England and Wales brought in the
annual sum of £14. Ateach general chapter held
every four years all the houses of White Canons
throughout England paid ros. to Welbeck as the
head house, producing (every fourth year) a further
sum of £14 10s. ‘ whiche draweth yerely to the
summe of lxxijs. vjd.’, Cuckney Manor and rents,
with rents from Retford mills and divers places
in Nottinghamshire, produced £128 10s. 11d. ;
Derbyshire temporalities at Newbold, Duckman-
ton, and Etwall, £33 55. 1d.; and Lincoln
temporalities, £10. The Nottinghamshire par-
sonages or rectories of Cuckney, Elkesley, Botham-
sall, Whatton, Aslockton, Flintham, and Little-
borough produced £66 19s. 7d¢.; whilst from
the same county there was an annual pension
out of Shelford Priory of 20s. and a payment in
wax of eight pounds at 6d.a pound. Other
appropriated churches were Anstey, Yorks. (with
a pension out of Rawmarsh); Whitton and
Coates, Lincolnshire ; and Etwall and Duckman-
ton, Derbyshire. The total annual income from
all these sources was entered at £298 4s. 8d.
Outgoings, however, brought down the clear
income to £249 6s. 3d. Under this head was
included the sum of £8 13s. 4d. expended in
obligatory alms, namely 35. 4d. to the poor of
Anstey on Good Friday, and the remainder in
ale and bread weekly at the abbey in commemo-
ration of Thomas Cuckney the founder.?”

Welbeck was a highly important house of
the English branch of the order, on account of
its numerous offspring, for the abbot was the
father abbot of no fewer than seven abbeys, and,
somewhat irregularly, stood in a like relationship
to one of its grandchildren, the Abbey of Titch-
field, Hampshire, founded in 1231 by a colony
from the recently-formed house of Halesowen.
The abbey of ‘Talley, Carmarthenshire, was
founded from the monastery of St. John’s,

®Harl. MS. 3640, fol. 35. * Thid.
a Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), 170-1.

131

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Amiens, but was subsequently made subsidiary
to Halesowen on account of the distance from
the father’s house; and when that arrangement
proved unsatisfactory owing to its poverty-
stricken and desolate condition, this small Welsh
abbey was transferred to the guardianship of
Welbeck.° | Welbeck’s seven direct children,
naming them in the order of their birth, were
Dureford, Sussex, c. 1160; Ho naby, Lin-
colnshire, 1175; Leiston, Suffolk, 1183 ; Beau-
chief, Derbyshire, 1183; West Dereham,
Norfolk, 1188; Torre, Devonshire, 1196 ;
and Halesowen, Salop, 1218. There must have
been indeed a most marvellous vitality and
fervour in this Nottinghamshire abbey, to have
been able to send out seven swarms into distant
parts of England within less than half a century.

The abbots of Premonstratensian houses, ,

though exempt from diocesan visitation, usually.
made submission to their diocesan after election,
promising canonical obedience in all
saving the rights of their order. Many of these

submissions of the abbots of Welbeck to their:

diocesan appear in the archiepiscopal registers of
York.

‘The entry recording the obedience, of John
de Duckmanton on his election.in 1309 states
that he was a canon of the Austin Order.”
When William de Kendall was elected in 1316
the see of York was vacant, but the abbot duly
proceeded to that city and made his promise of
obedience to the dean and chapter on 25 July
of that year.”

A commission was appointed in 1334 on the
complaint of Elizabeth widow of the late
Thomas Furnival, alleging that John de Not-
tingham, Abbot of Welbeck, with one of his
fellow canons, his chamberlain, and several
others, had broken into her park at Worksop,
and there hunted and carried away deer.®

Robert de Spalding, one of the canons of the
house, was elected abbot in 1341. Whereupon
the Abbot of Lanzdon, as commissary of the
Abbot of Prémontré, wrote to the Abbot of
Sulby stating that Spalding had lately been con-
victed of conspiracy and other crimes before
him and other visitors in the church of Welbeck,
and that he was to be peremptorily cited to
appear before him at Langdon. A certificate
was in due course forwarded to the commis-
sary that on 21 July the new abbot of Spalding
had been served with the citation in his own
chambers, which was exhibited and read to him
by two canons of Sulby, in the presence of
three of the discreet canons of Welbeck, John
de Retford, John de Blyth, and William de
Gedling.** We know nothing further of these

® Harl. MS. 3640, fol. 18 d.

* Tid. 6970, fol. 145.

* Ibid. fol. 156 d.

* Pat. 8 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 34 d.
“ Coll. Angh-Premon. ii, 167-9.

things.

charges, but at all events Abbot Robert was
allowed to continue in office until he was carried
off by the plague in 1349.

There is no necessity for entering here at
any length into the general question of the dis-
putes at the beginning of the 14th century be-
tween the Abbot-General of Prémontré and the .
houses of the English province, for Welbeck
took no.exceptional part in this prolonged dis-
pute.*® Suffice it to say that Prémontré made
three claims from the English White Canons :—
(1) The attendance of the abbots at the general
annual chapter at the mother house ; (2) The
appointment of a visitor to report to the abbot-
general ; (3) The taxation of the houses for the
benefit of the order in general and of Prémon-
tré in particular. It was the last claim that
was the source of so many disputes. A royal
proclamation of 1306 forbade the payment of
any subsidy by religious orders in England to a
foreign superior. ‘The English abbots, however,
were all summoned in 1310 by Adam de Crecy
(abbot-general from 1304 to 1327) to Prémon-
tré and strictly ordered to bring with them the
arrears of tallage. Thereupon the English
abbots met, including John de Cesterfeld, Abbot
of Welbeck, and sent word to the abbot-superior
that they could not obey him, for Parliament
had forbidden them to leave the kingdom, and
if they disobeyed they would certainly be out-
lawed and unable to return to their respective
houses. Two of their number, the Abbots of
Newhouse and Sulby, were, however, permitted
to go as proctors of their brethren. Eventually,
at a general chapter held in 1316, an agreement
was arrived at whereby the English abbots,
owing to their distance from the foreign centre,
were permitted to be represented at the annual
chapter at Prémontré by certain delegates, and
the question of apport or tallage to the mother
house was held in abeyance until the law of
England should be changed. Subsequently
during both the 14th and 15th centuries no
impediment was placed in the way of the dele-
gated Premonstratensian abbots crossing the
seas, provided the Crown licence was obtained
in each case. The entries on the Patent Rolls
granting permits of this kind to successive abbots
of Welbeck are sufficiently frequent to show the
importance of this abbey.

The granting of corrodies to royal pensioners
by this abbey was insisted on by the autocratic
Edward III. John de Norton was sent by the

* The matter has been dealt with at some length
in the account of Sulby (V.C.H. Northants, ii, 138-42).
It is fully discussed and all the documents cited at
length in Abbot Gasquet’s three valuable volumes,
Collectanea Angl-Premonstratensia (1904-7), where
Bishop Redman’s register (Ashm. MS. 1519) and
Peck’s collections in the B.M. are fully set forth.
Future references in this survey of Welbeck will be
given to these volumes instead of to the MSS.

132

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

king in 1353 to receive such maintenance at
Welbeck as Richard del Almoignerie, deceased,
had there at the king’s order.*® But all this
was changed in the succeeding reign. By the
advice of the council Richard II in 1383 re-
leased the abbot and convent in respect of any
corrody at the request of the king and his heirs,
notwithstanding the enjoyment heretofore at
the special request of Edward III of such corrody
or maintenance by John atte Lane, by Richard
de Merton, by Agnes the late king’s laun-
dress, and by others. This release was granted
on the petition of the abbey to the effect that
their house was founded by Thomas de Cuckney,
and was then in the patronage of his kinsman
and heir John de Cuckney ; that it was never in
the patronage of any of the king’s progenitors,
and that it was always free of corrodies up to
the time of the special requests of the late king.”
At the general provincial chapter of the order
held at Northampton in July 1454 it is recorded
that Brother Robert Staveley, sub-prior of Wel-
beck, was allowed to be present as proctor of
that house. Abbot Greene of Welbeck was at that
time across the seas on business of the order.*®
The servants of John Bankwell, Abbot of
Welbeck, were concerned in a singular and
serious affray in 1393 under the following cir-
cumstances: Robert Veel, keeper of the rolls
of the King’s Bench, and John Wynchecombe,
appointed to take carts for the carriage of the
rolls, were directed on Saturday before the feast
of St. Katherine, by Walter Clopton, chief
justice, to take the rolls from York to Notting-
ham by the following Tuesday. ‘The excessive
rainfall much impeded them, and they found
that they could not reach Nottingham without
additional horses. Whereupon, by virtue of
their commission and of the chief justice’s
order, they took two horses of John Levet and
John Turnour of Norton by Welbeck, to be
paid for in due course. ‘This action was so
fiercely resented that a number of the abbey
servants raised all the men of Norton in insur-
rection, and at dusk, armed with bows and
arrows and swords and clubs, set upon the said
Robert and John (instigated by one of the
canons. of Welbeck and by the vicar of Cuck-
ney), assaulted them, shot at and pierced the
rolls in the carriage, took the horses and would
have carried them away ‘but that by the grace
of God and help they made too good a defence.’
Eventually the delinquents in February 1392-3
obtained a royal pardon.*
' The general Premonstratensian register con-
tains a full account of the exceptional method
of electing John Greene to the abbacy in 1450
on ‘the death of John de Norton. ‘The election

3% Close, 27 Edw. III, m. 23 d.
37 Pat. 12 Ric. II, pt. 1, m. 8.
88 Coll. Anglo-Premon. i, 129-30.
8 Pat. 16 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 5.

was held under the direction of Robert, Abbot
of Newhouse. Almost immediately after the
burial of the late abbot, namely on 13 April,
the absent brethren having been duly summoned,
the electoral proceedings began. ‘The mass of
the Holy Spirit having been sung, all assembled
ih the chapter-house, John, Abbot of Dale,
being presént as the coadjutor of the Father
Abbot of Newhouse. The aid of the Holy
Spirit having been invoked and the statute of
their order relative to elections recited, the whole
of the brethren for certain reasonable causes, of
their own free motion, not under any compul-
sion or suggestion, but of their own absolute
free will, declined to exercise their franchise

personally, but besought the two Abbots of New-

house and Dale to select an abbot for them.
Thereupon the abbots, after much consideration,
chose John Greene, one of the Welbeck canons,
a prudent and discreet man, and much to be
commended in his life. The consent of the
elect having been humbly accorded, the election
was duly approved, ratified, and confirmed by
decree in chapter. The abbot was then con-
ducted by his brethren before the high altar, the
Te Deum being solemnly sung. He was in-
vested with corporal possession of the church,
installed in the abbot’s seat, and brought back to
the chapter-house, where each of the brethren
made formal acknowledgement of obedience,
placing his hands, when on his knees, within
those of the abbot (sbedientiam manualem), as his
father and pastor, without any objection: from
anyone ; meanwhile the obedientiaries laid their
respective keys at his feet, in token of obedience
and subjection. So soon as the election was
complete, the abbot first of all made oath to
observe in all its articles the composition made
between the house of Welbeck and John Hotham,
Bishop of Ely, for the manor of Cuckney.*°

A letter has been preserved addressed to
Abbot Greene by one Richard Clerk, of Coven-
try, touching the appointment of Harry the
abbot’s nephew ; it is dated 28 September 1454.
The particular interest of this homely letter
lies in the writer’s intended pilgrimage to Our
Lady of Doncaster, and to the cause which pre-
vented his making it. Welbeck lay on the
north-western confines of Sherwood, and was
approached from the south by a road through
the forest. ,

‘T hade proposede to a vysset you, and to hafe
soght that blessyd Virginne oure Lady of Don-
castre now this Flesch-Tyme; but (os I was
enformid) ther was so grete wynde in Schirwod,
that hit hade bene no sesenabull tyme for me
(at that tyme made be the persones aboveseyde),
and I hade cummen with xl horses I schulde
hafe bene overthrowne, os it was sayde.’ *

Shortly after the receipt of this letter, Abbot
Greene wrote a dimissorial letter on behalf of

133

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

John Lessbryke, a professed canon of Welbeck,
who had become a Trinitarian friar of Thels-
ford, Warwickshire. The abbot declared that
he left them to aim at the perfecting of a
better life, that he was free from any obligation
to their house and order, and they to him.”

Another letter, addressed to the same abbot in
1458, affords proof of the possession of a most
tender conscience by one of the beneficed
secular clergy. Thomas Hill, rector of Chester-
ford, Essex, wrote to the abbot at some length,
about two books, the one a breviary (bib/iam
portativam) and the other a book of the Arch-
bishop of Genoa on the Sunday Gospels.
These two books Hill had borrowed from
Richard Scott, formerly a chaplain of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, but (as he after-
wards heard) one William Danyell left them to
the monastery of Welbeck. Through the in-
fluence of Scott and other friends, Hill obtained
possession of these two volumes in 1420 from
the then Abbot and Convent of Welbeck by
purchase, paying for them 60s. Hill writes to
say that he was at that time young and given to
worldly gain, but that since he has been led to
think that he did not give a sufficiently good
price for the books, and he is willing either to
return the books on receipt of £3 or to pay to
the convent another 20s. so that the books should
remain at his disposition. On receipt of a
message under their seal, the 20s. would be for-
warded. If his proposals were not pleasing, he
would arrange to charge his executors after his
death to hand the books to an_ accredited
messenger on receipt of the 60s., but otherwise
to sell the books for the best price they could
obtain, and to forward the balance to Welbeck.
He was directing his executors to spend the 60s.
for the good of his soul, that is in masses. The
old rector is careful to tell the abbot his exact
address ; he was 7 miles beyond Cambridge and
2 miles distant from Saffron Walden. He adds,
out of the kindness of his heart, that if there
was any scholar from their parts reading at Cam-
bridge, who was accustomed to pay occasional
visits to parents or friends in Nottinghamshire,
he would be glad to entertain him at Chesterford
Rectory, which would be a less expense.“

The most interesting man who appears in
connexion with the Premonstratensian order in
England during the 15th century was the zealous
official, Richard Redman, abbot of the small
house of Shap in Westmorland. At an early

8 Librum Fannensis in suo Catholicon. This was
a popular collection of 13th-century sermons by
Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa (i.e.
Gennensis, usually corrupted into Jannensis). When
printing came in, this book passed through nine
editions before the end of the 15th century, it was
found so useful to preachers.

“ Coll. Anglo-Premon. ili, 176-7.

age he was appointed commissary-general by
Simon Abbot of Prémontré. We first meet
with him in connexion with Welbeck in 1458.
Writing on 11 September, Redman warns
Abbot Greene of Welbeck to present the sub-
sidies due from him for the past and present
years at the visitation which he proposed to hold
at that abbey on 9 December. He ordered that
dinner should be provided for him and his suite at
Papplewick, adding that he expected to be thence
safely conducted by the right road to Welbeck,
which he hoped to reach in time for supper.*®
Papplewick lies about 8 miles north of Notting-
ham. From thence to Welbeck is 13 miles as
the crow flies. At that period the abbot would
have to pass through the densest part of Sher-
wood Forest, leaving the Austin Priory of New-
stead on his left hand and the Cistercian Abbey
of Rufford on his right. The way could not
fail to be intricate, and we wonder at his courage
in undertaking it after dinner (probably at noon)
in the depth of winter. He naturally suggested
that he should be conducted from Papplewick,
for this was his first visitation, and in all proba-
bility he had not previously traversed the great
forest.

It was not, however, until 1 October 1466
that Redman was formally appointed visitor of
all the houses of the order in the British Isles;
at that date the commission as visitor granted to
the Abbot of Bayham was cancelled because he
had wholly neglected its duties.“* Redman was
consecrated Bishop of St. Asaph in 1471, trans-
lated to Exeter in 1496 and to Ely in 1501,
dying in 1505. During all that period he was
allowed to be Abbot of Shap in commendam, and
he also acted with much zeal and diligence as
vicar-general to the Abbot of Prémontré. He
visited, as a rule, each house of the order every
three years.

In Redman’s register particulars are given of
eleven of his visits to Welbeck, which occurred
in the years 1462, 1472, 1475, 1478, 1480,
1482, 1488, 1491, 1494, 1497, and 1500.

On 6 May 1462 Bishop Redman, visitor of
the White Canons of England, Wales, Scotland,
and Ireland, on behalf of the Abbot of Pré-
montré, made his formal visitation of Welbeck.
He found nothing of which to complain save
slight breaches of the rule of silence. Con-
trariwise, he entered in his register unstinted
praise of the way in which the divine offices
were conducted (ad unguem perfectos) day and
night, under the most serene rule of their vener-
able abbot, who himself day by day observed the
rule with the most faithful minuteness, truly
bearing in all things the burden and heat of the
day. The visitor was so much struck with the

* Coll. Angh-Premon.i,67-8. The levy expected to
be paid yearly to Prémontré by Welbeck about this
time was 66s. 8d. ; ibid. i, 76.

134

~ RELIGIOUS HOUSES

faithful zeal of the aged abbot, whom he noted
to be almost broken down with age and weak-
ness, that, entirely of his own motion and
special grace, he exempted the venerable father
of the monastery from obligatory attendance at
any of the quire offices, save of his own good
pleasure, and he also left the use of woollen
underclothing entirely to the latter’s discretion.
At the last visitation there was a debt on the
house of £40, but he found it reduced to £20.
The house was abundantly supplied (peroptime
staurata) with grain and all necessaries.

The bishop further ordered, for the honour of
God, the convenience of this house, and for the
good of religion, that the abbot should without
delay select the most suited in life and know-
ledge of his fellow canons, and send him up
before Michaelmas to the university of either
Oxford or Cambridge, there to be supported at
the expense of the house.*”

The next recorded visit of Bishop Redman
was in 1472, when he freed Robert Ouston, one
of the canons, from the obligation of attending
quire offices, on account of his infirmities and
age.8

In the record of the visitation of 1475 the
names of all the community who were present
are set forth. William Burton was abbot,
Robert Stanley prior, and Richard Symondson

sub-prior ; there were also ten other professed .

canons, and two novices. In addition to these
there were five vicars and a chaplain present
who were also still reckoned as White Canons
and subject in certain particulars to the rule.
The Premonstratensians were the only religious
order who held the privilege of presenting their
professed brethren to livings in their gift and
appropriation, without the need of any dispensa-
tion. When once episcopally instituted these
vicars could not be recalled, but they were
expected always to wear the habit of their order,
to attend visitations at their own abbey, and
in all ways possible to keep the rule. On this
occasion there were present the vicars of Cuck-
ney, adjoining Welbeck ; of Littleborough, on the
opposite side of the county near the Lincolnshire
borders ; of Whatton,* in the south-east of the
county; of Whitton and Coates, both in Lincoln-
shire ; and a chaplain in conventu Watton, which
must mean ‘in residence at Whatton,’ unless it
be the Gilbertine priory of Watton, Yorkshire.”

The general answers to the usual questions at
the visitation of 1478 show that the abbey at
that time held ten churches and two chapels.
Redman on this occasion appointed certain of
the canons to extra-official positions to help the

47 Coll. Anglo-Premon. iii, 177-8.

* Tbid. 179.

3° Coll. Anglo-Premon. iii, 179-80.

135

abbot, namely circator, provisor exteriorum, succentor,
and magister grangie, whose titles at once show
the duties expected of them. It was enjoined on
the circator to see that the doors of the cloister
were firmly locked and shut at nights and at
appointed times during the day. Brethren were
to wear almuces under their capes; the abbot
was to supply better bread and ale for the
convent, and to provide an infirmary where
a vicar was then residing, those premises being
vacated at once. All were to rise in time for
mattins ; delinquents in this respect to be pun-
ished. None were to go into the woods for
shooting or hunting. At the previous visitation
the house had been found in debt to the extent
of £90, and the debt had not been lessened
owing to the great trouble there had been in
defending the rights and liberties of the mon-
astery. There was only a moderate supply of
grain and other necessaries. The community
present on this occasion numbered twenty-four,
including two deacons and three novices; four
vicars appeared, and two others who are entered
as the respective chaplains of Bothamsall, near
Welbeck, and of Aslockton, a chapelry of Scar-
rington parish.>!

The visitation of 1482 shows a _ grievous
decline ; Abbot Burton proved a sad successor
to the virtuous Abbot Greene. Under an evil
superior any religious house would naturally go
downhill. The abbot was found guilty of
incontinence, as well as of dissipating the goods
of the monastery, pledging the jewels and plate,
and suffering the buildings to go into ruin; he
was formally deposed before the whole convent
and the Abbot of Beauchief, and sent to Barlings
Abbey, there to undergo certain years of penance.
Two other canons were also found guilty. The
care of the monastery was temporarily assigned
to John Colby, one of the canons, who held the
offices of sacrist and circator.™

Matters were not much better when Bishop
Redman visited Welbeck in 1488. One of the
canons was found guilty of incontinence; he
admitted the sin with great contrition, and was
subjected to severe penance for forty days, to be
followed by three years’ banishment to some other
house of the order.** Another canon, William
Hankyn, guilty of disobedience, of absence from
divine offices, and of hunting, was warned that
for every repetition he would be put on discipline
for forty days ; he was never to be allowed out
of the precincts lest he should return to his evil
habits, and he was meanwhile ordered to say
through the whole psalter by heart within the
year. John Colby, who was then vicar of Cuck-
ney, was charged to pay yearly to the abbot and

51 Ibid. 182-3. The canon who served the chapel
of Bothamsall lived in the abbey ; and this also seems
to have been generally the case with the vicar of
Cuckney.

8 Ibid. 184-5. 8 Ibid. 186-7.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

convent 20s. at the feast of the Assumption,
according to custom, and for this was to have his
meals provided within the house and not outside.
Games for money were prohibited. Better pro-
vision was to be made for the infirm. The
abbot was to see that the community had their
usual pensions, but if they didnot spend sufficient
on their clothes he was to stop the payment, and
himself buy what was necessary.* ‘

The next visit was made on 14 August 1491,
when Redman found that. Abbot Acastre was
ruling well both in external and internal matters ;
the buildings of the church and cloister as well as
outer buildings were then so fair, instead of being
ruinous and foul, that the abbot might be regarded
not so much as a repairer as anew founder. A
canon of Sulby who had been sent in punishment
to Welbeck was found guilty of disobedience and
not attending divine offices either night or day ;
he was adjudged to be put on discipline for forty
days, and then to be removed to St. Agatha’s for
ten years, but meanwhile to be kept in strict
custody, William Hankyn, who had been
warned three years before, was convicted of
apostasy, and of eating meat in secular houses ;
he was now put on discipline for forty days.
Other canons were punished for eating meat
with seculars and not rising for mattins, whilst
the sub-prior was blamed for not at once correct-
ing these things. The tonsure was to be in
accordance with the form approved by the order.
Neither deacon nor sub-deacon was to genuflect
at the elevation of the Host, but only reverently
to incline. At the election of the abbot the
debt of the house was 300 marks; it had been
reduced to £30. The house was abundantly
supplied with necessary stores. There were
twenty-four present at the visitation, including
six vicars, but the minister of Bothamsall is
entered as a vicar and not as a chaplain.®

Three years later Bishop Redman was again
at Welbeck, where twenty-two inmates offered
themselves for visitation, including six vicars.
He happily found everything in good order, and
nothing to correct ; but he pronounced excom-
munication on one canon who had fled.*® Red-
man was here again in 1497, when twenty-three
inmates or canon vicars were visited. Two
canons were punished for the extravagance of
their tonsures (pro enormitate tonsure); one of
them had to say the whole psalter, but the other
Salvum me fac nightly. Everything else was in
an admirable state; there was unity, concord,
and love between the head and the members, and
no complaints; there was an admirable provision
of every kind of grain and cattle and of all
necessaries.”

When the abbey was visited on 22 November
1500, the community were ordered to have their
meals together in the refectory on fast days and

* Coll. Anglo-Premon. iii, 186-9. © Ibid. 189-92.
Ibid. 192-3. * Thid. 193-4.

during the seasons of Advent and Lent. One
canon had broken the rule and got into debt;
he was to see that he was clear of debt before
the next provincial chapter. For the rest all
was in good order; there was mutual goodwill
between the abbot and household, with filial
obedience.* Here the visitation records of this
house come to anend.

Thomas Wilkinson, who was elected abbot in
1503, became commissary-general and visitor for
the Abbot of Prémontré on the death of Richard
Redman (who was at that time Bishop of Ely) in
1505.°°

Shortly before the dissolution of all the English
monasteries, namely in the year 1512, singular
honour was done to the abbey of Welbeck, for
it was placed both by pope and king at the head
of all the houses of White Canons in England
and Wales. The abbot (Thomas Wilkinson)
and his successors were declared ex-officio visitors-
general; a provincial chapter was to be held
annually at Welbeck, or some other place
appointed by the abbot, and its power was to be
the same as that of the general chapters hitherto
attended by the English abbots at Prémontré.
The order was henceforth to be exempt in Eng-
land and Wales from any foreign jurisdiction,
and the Abbot of Welbeck was always to be
numbered amongst the king’s chaplains.”

John Maxey, the penultimate Abbot of Wel-
beck, was appointed in 1520. In 1525 he was
consecrated Bishop of Elphen, but allowed to
remain abbot in commendam ; he did homage to
the king and took the oath on Sunday 23 July,
when he was graciously received by Henry.®
This abbot was a favourite of Wolsey’s, and
formed part of his suite in 1527. Two years
latter the cardinal gave hima valuable spoon of
crown gold.“ When Wolsey in the following
year proceeded to his manor of Southwell, the
Abbot of Welbeck was entrusted with the duty
of providing corn for bread, and drink for the
household.

After the fall of Wolsey and the rise of Crom-
well there are no more gifts for the Abbot of
Welbeck, and the correspondence with the Lord
Privy Seal bears the almost invariable characteris-
tic of forcing money or money’s worth from the
religious houses placed under his control. On
St. Matthew’s Day 1533 the abbot wrote to
Cromwell from Welbeck saying that he sent him
his poor fee, and also ‘according to your desire I
send you a good bay gelding, the best I have.’
At their next meeting he promised to further
show him his mind concerning religion (i.e. the

* Ibid. 195-6.

* Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 495; Coll Angh-Premon. i,
123.

° L. and P. Hen. VIII, iv, 1511.

* Ibid. 3216. © Ibid. 5341.

“ Ibid. 6329.

136

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Premonstratensian Order). He had heard that
in the lower house an act had been conceived
touching vicars, which would profit no one but
the bishops. ‘My religion was mostly founded
in spiritualities, and if the vicars are called home
and their benefices given to secular priests, it
would undo the third part of our houses. By
the pope’s bulls and the king’s grants, we
may give our vicarages unto our religious
brethren.’ ®

The abbot of the Premonstratensian house of
West Dereham, Norfolk, died on 26 October
1535, and when the certificate reached Abbot
Maxey at Welbeck he wrote on 2 November to

romwell desiring to know his pleasure in writ-
ing, although the king had granted him and the
monastery of Welbeck the elections of all of their
religion within the realm.® He was evidently

determined to do his best to deserve well of the
despot. In January 1536 Maxey again wrote
to Cromwell, sending him £10, ‘as your fee for
my religion,’ a ‘fee’ for which there could be
no shadow of pretence.”

The abbey had to submit in 1536 to a visita-
tion from the notorious royal commissioners,
Legh and Layton. According to their state-
ment three of the canons were guilty of un-
natural offences and one wasincontinent. Three
of them sought release from their vows. The
annual income was returned at £280, and the
debts at £40.88

Abbot Maxey, Bishop of Elphen, died in August
1536, and the Earl of Shrewsbury wrote to
Cromwell on the 18th telling him of the death
and saying that the brethren were going up to
the king to make suit for free election. The
earl begged Cromwell that he would favour
them, believing that there were several among
them discreet and able to be master.®

In the spring of 1537 the Abbot of Barlings
was accused of concealing various items of pro-
perty pertaining to his own and other religious
houses in order that it might escape confiscation
at the hands of the Crown commissioners. In-
formation was given to the council that he had
deposited over £20 worth of plate with the
vicar of Scothern near Barlings, which was
laid in pledge by the Abbot of Welbeck,
deceased.”

Richard Bentley was the name of the abbot
eventually nominated by Cromwell to succeed
Abbot Maxey. On 20 June 1538 he signed
the surrender of his house ; the deed of surrender
was also signed by William Hatfield, the sub-
prior, and by the following sixteen other canons :

Thomas Sysson, John Cheenys (cook), John

8 0. and P. Hen. VIII, vi, 1142.
% Tbid. ix, 745.

87 Ibid. x, 110.

3 Ibid. 364.

Thid. xi, 326.

7 Ibid. xii (1), 765.

Rawlinson, William Rotheram, Richard Awsten,
Thomas Hyll, Richard Hogley, Edward Thom-
son, William Almunde, John Lychfeld, Nicholas
Bolland, James Casson, Richard Halifax, Chris-
topher Bentlay, Thomas Castell, and William
Wilson.”

In the following month pensions were assigned
to the dispossessed canons. The abbot obtained
a pension of £50, William Hatfield the sub-
prior and one other £6, and the rest sums
varying from £4 to £40.” The pension list
omits altogether five canons who signed the
surrender: they were probably holders of the
abbey’s vicarages ; but three others who did not -
sign, and who were most likely absent at granges,
gained pensions; it therefore follows that there
were twenty canons of Welbeck, in addition to
the abbot, at the time of its dissolution.

It is noteworthy, as discrediting the scandals
of Legh and Layton, that of the four canons
accused by them of terrible offences three received
pensions, of £6, £5, and 7 marks respectively,
whilst the fourth retained his vicarage.

In February 1539 Richard Whalley of Shel-
ford obtained the grant in fee, on payment
of £500, of the church, steeple, churchyard,
water-mill, &c., within the site of the dissolved
abbey of Welbeck, together with the granges
called Bellers Grange and Hurst Grange, and
various closes and pastures in the parish of
Cuckney, Rumwood and other woods, and the
reversion of other of the monastic property, of an
annual rent of 56s. 2d.’™

The first seal of Welbeck Abbey was a pointed
oval, bearing St. James in episcopal vestments,
right hand raised in benediction, and pastoral
staff in left hand. The somewhat indistinct
impression in the British Museum has the
marginal legend : + sIGILLUM : CONVENTUS...
OBI. APOSTOLI DE WELLEBE. . .8

A small second seal (late 13th century) isa
pointed oval having St. James, with bonnet,
wallet, and staff, standing on a platform, and an
abbot with a pastoral staff kneeling before him.
Above the figures is a trefoiled canopy, and in
the field an estoile of six points. Remains of
legend:—. .. IGE... SCI JACOBI. D...
WELLEBE . A.”4

A later 14th-century seal has St. James in
similar pilgrim dress standing on acarved corbel ;
the wallet is charged with an escallop. Only
a few letters of the legend remain.”

There are also impressions extant at the
British Museum of the seals of Abbot Adam
(1193) and of Abbot Richard (13th century).’®

” Dep. Keeper's Rep. viii, App. ii, 47.
7 Aug. Off. Bks. ccxxxii, (2), fol. 62-4.
7 Pat. 30 Hen. VIII, pt. ii, m. 33.
Harl. Chart. 45 A. 30.

™ Wolley Chart. i, 52.

% Harl. Chart. 45 A. 31.

7 Tbid. 6 ; Seal Casts, lii, 12, 13.

2 137 18

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

ABBOTS OF WELBECK

Berengar, occurs between 1153 and 11697
Adam, occurs between 1183 and 1194
Richard, occurs between 1194 and 1224
William, occurs 1229, 1236, 1243 ®
Richard, occurs 1250, 1252, 1256-7"
Adam, occurs 1263, 1272, 1276”
Thomas, occurs 1281, 1292 ®

John de Duckmanton, 1309 *

John de Cestrefeld, 1310 ®

William de Kendall, 1316

John de Nottingham, 1322 ®

William de Aslakeden, 1335 8

Robert Spalding, 1341 *

John de Wirksop, 1349

Hugh de Langley, 1360"

George de Gamelston, occurs 1369, 1383,
1387

William de Staveley, occurs 1389

John Bankwell, occurs 1393 ™

John de Norton, occurs 1412, dies 1450 °°

John Greene, 1450 °°

William Burton, occurs 1475, 1482”

John Lancaster alias Acastre, occurs 1488,
14918

John Copper, occurs 1492 °°

Thomas Wydur, occurs 1494, 1497, 1500

Robert, occurs 1502 1

Thomas Wilkinson, 1503 1

John Maxey, 1520," died 1536

Richard Bentley, surrendered 1538

HOUSE OF PREMONSTRATENSIAN CANONESSES

12. THE PRIORY OF BROADHOLME

There were but two convents of canonesses
of the Premonstratensian Order in England,
namely at Broadholme, Nottinghamshire, and
Ilford, Lincolnshire.

There is some uncertainty as to the date of
the foundation of the small house of Broadholme
on the borders of Lincolnshire, and as to the
name or names of the original founders. It was
an early offshoot of the Premonstratensian house
of Newhouse (Lincolnshire). It appears, strange
to say, to have been originally a house for both
sexes, for the first benefaction named in a long
inspection charter of Edward II, subsequently
cited, was made to God and St. Mary and to the
brethren and sisters of Broadholme—an expression
which is repeated in other early grants. Leland
states that Agnes de Camville, wife of Peter
Gousla (or Gousley), the founder of Newhouse,
placed here a prioress and nuns of the Premon-
stratensian Order about the latter part of the
reign of King Stephen.?

When the Taxation Roll of Pope Nicholas
was drawn up in 1291, it was found that the

7 Harl. Chart. 45 A. 30; Addy, Beauchief, 25.

7 Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 8 ; Harl. Chart. 45 A. 6.

7 Addy, Beauchief; Harl. Chart. 49 I. 16.

5 Pat. 13 Hen. III, m. tod.; Welbeck Chart. fol.
88; Wolley Chart. (B.M.), i, 49.

8! Welbeck Chart. fol. 84, 86, 87, 89,

8 Tbid. 85-6, 89, go.

S Dep. Keepers Rep. 1, 110; Wolley Chart.
(B.M.), i, 52.

& Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 18 ; 6970, fol. 145.

& Ibid. 6970, fol. 1464.

% Tbid. fol. 1564 ; 6972, fol. 20.

§ Ibid. 6972, fol. 23.

® Dugdale, Mon. vi, 872.

9 Coll. .4ngis-Premen. iii, 167.

%® Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 254.

*\ Tbid. fol. 274.

Prioress of Broadholme held a variety of small
temporalities in Lincolnshire to the annual value
of {£4 135.; and that in Nottinghamshire the
appropriated church of Thorney (in which parish
the house was situated) brought in an additional
income of £8.

A charter of inspection and confirmation
granted to the priory of Broadholme by Edward II
in 1318 gives a summary of the benefactions up
to that date.2 The principal of these were :—
An orchard by the cemetery of the church of
St. Botolph, Saxilby* (Lincolnshire), by Ralph
D’Aubeney ; a large amount of land, meadow,
pasture, and tenements in Saxilby, on the south
side of the Fosse Dyke, by Peter and Agnes
Goushill and their children and others ; lands in
Ingleby (adjoining Saxilby), by Geoffrey de Crosby;
rents in Skellingthorpe (Lincolnshire), by Baldwin
Wake ; the church of St. Helen, Thorney, with
lands and the site of a mill, by Walter and Agnes de
Clifford ; rents in Newark and two quarters of
corn from the manor of Wigsley, by Hugh de
Basset ; a toft in Fillingham, Lincolnshire, by

” Dugdale, Mon. vi, 872 ; Pat. 6 Ric. II, pt. ii,
m. 2; 18 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 20.

* Dugdale, Mon. vi, 872.

“ Pat. 16 Ric. II. pt. ii, m. 7.

* Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 354.

* Coll. Anglo-Premon. iii, 179, 186.

* Ibid. 188, 191.

* Surtees Soc. Publ. lvii, 133.

"Coll. Anglo-Premon. iii, 193, 195.

1! Ibid. 165.

Harl. MS. 6972, fol. 49d.

at L. and P. Hen. VIII, iv, 1511.

Dep. Keeper's Rep. viii, App. ii, 47.

keig oe

? Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com. 104.

3 Pat. 12 Edw. i, pt. i, m. A oe

* Saxilby is on the borders of a projecting loop of
East Notts.

138

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

William Wynok; rents at Broadholme, by
William Newbrid ; lands and rents in the parish
of Sir Edward Wigford (Lincoln), by Aubrea and
Ivo, children of Ralph son of Lambert ; rents at
Collingham, by Ralph de Muscamp and Isabel
daughter of Alured de Collingham; lands in
North Collingham, by Richard de Claypole ; lands
in Torksey (Lincolnshire), by Walter Faber ;
rents in Stow (Lincolnshire), by Peter de
Campania; and lands, pastures, meadows, and
rents in Little Hale (Lincolnshire), by Simon de
Hale:

A confirmation charter granted by the king in
the following year conjointly to the abbey of
Newhouse and the priory of Broadholme is evi-
dence of the close early alliance between these two
houses, and also makes mention several times of
the ‘brethren and sisters of St. Mary’s, Brodholme’
in the earlier grants.© But such a title as this
does not appear to have long prevailed, and was
clearly out of date when this confirmation charter
was issued. In the very next year (1320) a
licence appears on the Patent Roll for the
‘prioressand nuns of Brodholme’ to acquire in
mortmain lands, tenements, and rents to the
value of £10 a year.®

In 1326 Matthew Brown, escheator for the
counties of Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, and
Rutland, was ordered by the Crown not to inter-
meddle further with a toft and 20 acres of
land of the prioress (Matilda) of Broadholme in
Saxilby, which had been mistakenly taken by the
escheator into the king’s hands, on the death of
Margaret Warrok, who was the priory’s tenant
for those lands.’

Queen Isabel was a particular patroness of
the nuns of Broadholme. In February 1327,
‘for the special affection which she bore to them,’
the queen granted the prioress and nuns a yearly
rent of 8 marks out of certain lands in Great
Massingham, Norfolk, whereof one moiety was
to be applied for clothing, 2 marks for their
pittance, and the remaining 2 marks for the
repair of their buildings. In October of that
year the priory, at the request of Queen Isabel,
obtained licence to acquire in mortmain land and
rent, not held in chief, to the yearly value of £10.°

Two years later a mandate was issued to the
sheriff of Norfolk to aid the prioress and nuns in
recovering the rent of 8 marks granted them
in 1327 out of Great Massingham.”

The advowson or patronage of Broadholme,
which simply implied a formal approval of the
appointment of the elected prioress, usually went
with the manor of Saxilby. William Cressy of
Markham settled that manor with the advowson

5 Pat. 13 Edw. II, m. 29.

6 Pat. 14 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 10.
7 Close, 19 Edw. II, m. 6.

8 Pat. 1 Edw. III, pt.i, m. 24.
® Tbid. pt. ili, m. 17.

of Broadholme, in 1365, on James son of Sir
John de Lysers and Maud his wife ; it afterwards
frequently changed hands for lack of heirs male.!!

A papal confirmation of a former ordinance of
the chapter-general of Prémontré, granted by
Alexander V in 1409 at the petition of the
Prioress and Convent of St. Mary’s, Broadholme, is
of much interest in connexion with the somewhat
meagre history of this house. The ordinance
hereby confirmed was passed in 1354, when Joan
de Rield was prioress. Out of consideration for
Queen Isabel, and by the mediation of a number
of abbots of the order, and particularly of Alan,
then Abbot of Newhouse, the father abbot of the
priory, it was ordained, in the presence of the
Abbots of Barling, Langdon, Croston, and Wel-
beck, and of Sirs Richard Gray, John Lysyers,
John Pigot, and John Everingham, knights, that
(1) on voidance of the priory of Broadholme the
Abbot of Newhouse should repair there in person,
or senda fit member of the order, to investigate in
the chapter-house the wishes of each sister under
oath, and should appoint as prioress her on whom
falls the consent of all or the greater part ; (2)
that all the money arising from the fruits, &c., of
the priory, together with the common seal and
muniments, should be kept in a chest fitted with
two keys of different make, one to be kept by
the prioress and the other by the sister whom the
others shall choose ; that (3) in order to avoid the
impoverishment of the priory only one canon of
Newhouse should dwell there, to say daily mass
for the sisters and to overlook their temporalities,
but he is not to presume to dispose of aught
thereof against the will of the prioress ; that (4)
the prioress should have temporal jurisdiction over
all her servants, appointing and removing them
at pleasure ; that (5) in the event of paucity of
sisters, she may, with the counsel and leave of
the abbot, admit others ; and that (6) the father
abbot should have right to hear or cause to be
heard four times a year, without expense to the
priory, the confessions of the prioress and sisters,
and should also visit them for two days once a
year, with four or five carriages, and stay at their
expense.”

Among the Premonstratensian records is the
fragment of a visitation of Broadholme, probably
of the year 1478, from which it appears that all
the nuns, before reception, were to know how to
sing and read.8

In a list of the names of the order in the
English province, drawn up in 1494, nine canon-
esses are entered as on the roll of Broadholme,
namely :—

Dame Elizabeth Brerworth, priorissa
Johanna Stertone, suppriorissa
Johanna Uptone
Agnes Aschby

" Thoroton, Notts. i, 386.
2 Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 159-60.
8 Coll, Angh-Premon. ii, 104.

”»
”»
”

139

re ce

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Dame Elizabeth Formane
»» Johanna Newsome
» Johanna Roos
» Johanna Steyntone
»» Margery Robynsone ™4
The Valr Ecclesiasticus of 1534 gives the
gross annnal value of this small priory as
£18 115. 10d. Rents at various places in the
counties of Nottingham and Lincoln, together
with 80 acres of demesne lands, only brought
in £16 11s. 10d., whilst the value of the great
tithes of Thorney had dropped to 405. The
clear annual value was but £16 55. 2d.

On 12 December 1536 Joan Aungewen (or
Angevin), the last prioress, was assigned a pension
of 7 marks."

The site was granted by the Crown in 1537
to Ralph Jackson.”

PrRIORESSES OF BROADHOLME

Matilda, occurs 13267

Joan de Rield, occurs 1354 18

Elizabeth de Brerworth, occurs 1496
Joan Aungewen, occurs 1534 and 1536”

HOUSE OF GILBERTINE CANONS

13. THE PRIORY OF MATTERSEY

The Gilbertine priory of Mattersey was
founded in the lifetime of the memorable founder
of this order, St. Gilbert of Sempringham, by
Roger son of Ranulph de Mattersey, about the
year 1185. It was established on an island in
the River Idle, was dedicated to the honour of
St. Helen, and intended to support six Gilbertine
canons.)

An inspection and confirmatory charter of the
year 1341 recites a grant of confirmation.

Pope Celestine in 1192 committed a cause
between the Abbot of Welbeck and the canons
of Mattersey concerning the advowson of the
churches of Mattersey, Misson, Bolton (Lanca-
shire), Gamston on Idle, and Elkesley, to the
judgement of the Abbot of Darley and two other
ecclesiastics, before whom an agreement was
sealed at Blyth, whereby the right to all these
advowsons was conceded to Mattersey, saving
the church of Elkesley, which was to remain with
Welbeck.?

About the end of the reign of Edward I,
Isabel de Chauncy, daughter of Thomas de
Mattersey, for the souls of herself and of her late
husband, Sir Philip de Mattersey, gave in her
widowhood to the prior and convent of St. Helen
on the Isle of Mattersey her whole demesne,
with all homages of the township of Mattersey
and Thorpe, and all lands and tenements which
they had by the gift of her ancestor in Matter-
sey, Thorpe, Gamston, Elkesley, West Retford,
Misson, and Bolton, together with the advowsons
of the churches of Mattersey, Gamston, Misson,
and Bolton.3

" Coll. Angl-Premon. ii, 105.

6 Ibid. ccix, 84.

™ Close, 19 Edw. I, m. 6.

18 Cal. of Papal Letters, vi, 159.

” Pxlor Eccl. v, 185 ; Aug. Off. Bks. ccxxxii, 40.
' Thoroton, Noffs. iil, 442.

In 1303 John, Prior of Mattersey, was granted
simple protection by Edward I for two years, as
he was going to the court of Rome.*

The prior and canons in 1307 were granted
free warren in Mattersey and Thorpe.®

The Prior of Mattersey in 1276 claimed full
chartered privileges of freedom from pontage,
passage, and every kind of toll and custom, and
from hundred and other dues throughout England;
also free warren in his demesne lands of Matter-
sey and Thorpe. In support of these claims he
produced a charter of Henry III, of the year
1251, and another recently granted by Edward I.®

The Hundred Rolls of 1275 show that the
Prior of Mattersey was charged with making so
great encroachments on the road leading from
Gringley on the Hill to Mattersey, that it was
scarcely possible for a cart to make its way there.
The jury also declared that the prior held a
charter of Henry III to the effect that his men
need appear only before the king or his chief
justices to answer any complaint or charge, and
that on this account the former waxed too bold
and were a source of much annoyance to their
neighbours. It was also set forth that the Prior
and Canons of Mattersey held 11 oxgangs of
land of the fee of Lancaster at Mattersey ; a
parcel of land at the same place on which their
house was situate, of the gift of Roger de
Mattersey, senior ; also the advowsons of the
churches of Gamston and Misson, and half the
church of Mattersey, of the fee of Lancaster ;
with 4s, rent from the nuns of Wallingwells ;
an oxgang anda half at Finningley, of whose
gift they are ignorant; half an oxgang at Morton,
of the fee of Lancaster, the gift of Robert le
Vavasour ; a toft and about 30 acres of land

* Welbeck Chart. fol. 129; cited in Thoroton,
Notts. 111, 332.

* Cited in inspection charter, Chart. R. 4 Edw. ILI,
m. 50.

* Pat. 31 Edw. I, m. 39.

® Chart. R. 35 Edw. I, m. 17.

° Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 624~5.

140

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

in Elkesley, of the fee of Lancaster, the gift of
Alexander de Kirkton; 4s. rent in West Ret-
ford, of the same fee, the gift of William
Doynel ; 2 oxgangs in Torworth, of their own
buying, of the same fee; 3s. rent in Lound,
of the same fee, the gift of Roger de Osberton ;
12d. rent in Lound, of the fee of Tickhill, the
gift of Matthew de Sutton ; 4s. rent at the same
place and of the same fee, the gift of William
son of Hubert; 4 acres and a toft in Mattersey,
of the fee of Lancaster, the gift of Thomas, Dean
of Crumwell; 40 acres of land and a toft in
Clayworth, of the fee of Tickhill, the gift of
Henry son of Robert; 60 acres of the land of
the soke of Oswardbec, bought in the time of the
late king ; 12 acres of land in Eaton, of the fee of
Tickhill, the gift of Robert de Ulrington ; and
half a mark rent in Normanton, of the fee of
Lancaster, the gift of Thomas the chaplain.’

A severe fire wrought dire destruction at this
priory in the year 1279. On 20 November of
that year Archbishop Wickwane ordered an in-
quisition to be held concerning the destruction
of the charters and other muniments pertaining
to the pensions and possessions of the house
which had perished in the flames. The jury,
consisting of rectors and vicars as well as religious,
were to make minute inquiry on oath as to the
substance of the writings which had been burnt.
On 5 December a certificate was registered from
the official of the Archdeacon of Nottingham,
stating that the rectors of the churches of Elkesley,
Kirton, and Boughton, and the vicars of Wheat-
ley, East Markham, West Markham, Walesby,
Elkesley, South Leverton, and Headon, with
other jurors, declarel that the monastery of
Mattersey possessed before the fire a certain
document, under the seal of Archbishop Gray,
assigning to them an annual pension of § marks
out of the churches of Misson and Gamston on
Idle. Moreover the jurors declared that they had
formerly seen and read a composition between
Mattersey and the nuns of Wallingwells, where-
by the patronage of the church of Mattersey was
assigned to that priory.®

In October 1280 the diocesan’s licence for
the appropriation of the church of Mattersey to
the priory was obtained, in consequence of their
poverty through the fire.°

The Taxation Roll of 1291 estimates the
annual value of the temporalities of this priory in
Nottinghamshire at £35; there were also in
spiritualities the appropriated churches of Mat-
tersey {5 and Misson £12, giving a total taxable
income of £52.°

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 shows that
the priory held 100 acres of demesne lands worth
£9 4 year, and other temporalities to the value

7 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 26, 303-4.

8 York Epis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 620 d.

® Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 105.

10 Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 3114, 312.

of £30 6s. 7d. The most valuable of their
spiritualities was a pension of £10 out of the
rectory of Bolton, Lancashire, whilst the appro-
priated rectory of Misson, tithes of certain ox-
gangs in Mattersey, and a pension from Gam-
ston Church, brought their total income up to
£61 16s. 7d. The clear annual value, however,
was only £55 2s. 5d.)

Henry IV in 1403 granted the priory a weekly
market on Monday at Mattersey and two annual
fairs, the one on the vigil and day of St. John of
Beverley, and the other on the vigil and day of
Sts. Simon and Jude.”

This priory was visited by the notorious Legh °
and Layton in 1536. They stated that they
found one of the canons incontinent, and he
desired release from his vows. The annual
value was returned at (60. They also stated
that the founder (patron) was Edward Thirland.¥

The priory was surrendered on 3 October
1538 by Robert, Bishop of Llandaff, commenda-
tory general master of the Order of Sempring-
ham, and by Thomas Norman, Prior of Matter-
sey, Thomas Bell, sub-prior, and John Garton,
William Schylton, and Richard Watson,
canons.!4

Pensions were assigned on 2 December 1539
of £12 to the prior, £2 135. 4d. tothe sub-prior,
and 40s. each to the three other canons.

The site, with houses, church, steeple, church-
yard, a warren of coneys,a water-mill, a wind-
mill, fishery rights, and rectory and advowson of
vicarage of Mattersey, was granted to Anthony
Nevill, esq., of the Royal Body, and Mary his
wife, together with all the priories, manors, &c.,
on 4 November 1539.78

There is a cast in the British Museum from a
damaged impression of the original seal of this
priory. It is a pointed oval, and appears to have
the figure of a prior kneeling before St. John
Baptist, with a long cross, holding up his hand in
benediction. Legend :—

s’ PRIORIS DE MARESEYA2?

Priors oF MatTrTeErRsEy

Walter, occurs 1247 18

A , occurs 1266

John, occurs 1303

Thomas Norman, occurs 1538 72

" Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 178.
9 Ing. a.q.d. 4 Hen. IV, 22.

13, and P. Hen. VIII, x, 364.

™ Rymer, Foedera, xiv, 619.

M4 Aug. Off. Bks. ccxxxiii, 664, 67.
6 Pat. 31 Hen. VIII, pt. iii, in. 11.
Casts of Seals, xx, 47.

18 Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 514.

9 Ibid. fol. 564, 60.

* Pat. 31 Edw. I, m. 39.

3) Rymer, Foedera, xiv, 619.

141

patablibeemben edie ctiin ees Sent on aera arent EE!

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

HOUSE OF KNIGHTS

14. THE PRECEPTORY OF
OSSINGTON

Roger de Buron, toward the close of his life,
in the latter half of the 12th century, gave the
town of Ossington to Lenton Priory, joining the
Cluniac order and wearing their habit. But
early in his life he had bestowed the same town
on the Knights Hospitallers) who held his
charter. This not unnaturally gave rise to con-
siderable litigation. His son, Walter Smallet, in
1204 confirmed the original grant to the Hos-
pitallers. Eventually in 1208 the superior
claim of the Hospitallers was admitted by the
priory, with some slight modification.’ Henry II
granted them free warren over their demesne
lands in Ossinzton.?

In a compendious chartulary of the possessions
of the order, drawn up in 1434, it is stated that
Archbishop William (probably William Fitz
Herbert, 1143-54) granted them the church of
Ossington with its appurtenances. The next
entry adds that one Henry Hosatus gave the
Nottinghamshire churches of Winkburn and
Averham to the order, and that Adam Tyson
gave the town of Winkburn.®

The gift of the two churches of Winkburn
and Averham must have been earlier than 1199,
for in that year they are included ina long general
confirmation to the Hospitallers, executed by
King John.‘

Archbishop Gray confirmed to the brethren of
the Temple in England in 1230 their rights in
the churches of Marnham and Sibthorpe, with
their annual pension of 2s. from the first and of
2 marks from the other.®

A letter of recommendation of the Hospitallers
was issued by Archbishop Romayne in 1287 to
the Archdeacon of Nottingham, by him to be
forwarded to all the rectors, vicars, and priests of
his archdeaconry, urging that when the messen-
gers of the order arrived after their accustomed
manner, they should be admitted, heard with
kindness, and not hindered in any way whatso-
ever in expounding to their parishioners the
nature of the business on which they were sent.®

The jury of the wapentake of Bingham stated
in 1276 that the officials of both Templars and
Hospitallers had on many past occasions and up
to the present day treated the inhabitants unjustly
and extorted money from them. Other jurors of

' Thoroton, Nits. ili, 172-3.
? Dugdale, Men. (orig. ed.), ii, 552.
* Ibid. 546.

“Chart. R. 1 John, pt. i, 114.
see also Thoroton, Noffs. ili, 177-8.
* York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 35.

® Ibid. Romanus, fol. 71.

As to Winkburn

HOSPITALLERS

the county at the same time certified that the Hos-
pitallers held the manors of Deyvilthorpe (Dane-
thorpe), Winkburn, Ossington, and 4s. rent in
Willoughby, as well as free warren in Ossington,
Wiinkburn, and Danethorpe, and a park at Wink-
burn. The jurors of Newark testified that both
Templars and Hospitallers had made encroach-
ments on the waters of the Trent.”

At the time of the cruel suppression of the
Templars in 1312 there was an unseemly
scramble for the property of theorder in England.
Edward II seized some for himself, and trans-
ferred not a little to his favourites. The strong
remonstrance of the pope against this seculariza-
tion of ecclesiastical property brought about an
Act of Parliament in 1324, by which the Hos-
pitallers were put into legal possession of that
which had previously been declared to be theirs
by papal decree. Some, however, still remained
in lay hands. ‘The Templars had comparatively
small estates in Nottinghamshire, but Hugh le
Despenser managed to retain Templars’ lands at
Carlton worth 20 marks a year.°

In 1338, when Prior Philip de Thame made
a return to the Grand Master of the English
possessions of the Hospitallers, full particulars
were entered of the Bajulia de Ossington, as well
as of the smaller estate or camera of Winkburn,
with its member of Danethorpe,’® which throw
much light on the working of these establish-
ments.

The total receipts and profits of the precep-
tory of Ossington for that year amounted to
£85 8s. 8d. The capital messuage and garden
were valued at 165s. 8d. ; two dovecotes at 125. 3
600 acres of demesne land at 6d. an acre, £15;
32 acres of meadow, at 2s. an acre, and 6 acres
of pasture land, 20s.; two windmills, 40s. ;
labour and customary service of villeins, 79s. 4d.;
rent in cocks and hens, 20s.; court pleas and
perquisites, 40s.; a messuage at ‘ Thurmeton,’
with gt acres of land and 10 of pasture, 10
marks ; common pasture at Ossington for 12
cows and 600 sheep, 25. a cow and Id.a sheep,
745.5 assize rents, £243 confraria, not quite
accurately known, owing to the delay of certain
donors, but averaging in recent years {22 105.;
and the appropriation of the church of Ossington,
f° 108:

The outgoings for the support of the house-
hold, namely a preceptor, a brother, a chaplain,
two clerks de fraria and various servants, together

" Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 2 3 Plac. de Quo
War. (Rec. ony 65 ee ee

* Porter, Knights of Malta, i, 198-9.

* Larking, Knights Hospitallers in Engl. (Camd. Soc.
1857), 212.

142

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

with many occasional visitors and guests, included
bread and corn, £9 ; 80 quarters of barley for
brewing, £8; flesh, fish, and other necessaries
for the kitchen at 2s. 6d. a week, £6 Ios. ; oats
for the horses of the preceptor and guests, £5 ;
habits and clothing for the preceptor and his
confrater, 545. 8d. ; stipend of the steward, 20s.;
stipend of the parochial chaplain, 265. 84d. ;
clothing and salary of servants, 335. 4d. ; two
boys of the preceptor, one cook boy, a swine-
herd, a cowherd, a carter, 5s. each, and three
pages, 20d. each ; repairs of the houses, 205. ; the
two days’ visitation of the prior, 40s., and archi-
diaconal fees, 145. The outgoings also included
four life pensions, which were a heavy charge on
the house, namely £10 a year to Henry de
Edwinstow, clerk of the king’s chancery; 5 marks
to Sir John de Bolynbrock ; £20 to Sir Robert de
Silkeston ; and 5 marks to Brother Thomas de
Warrenne. These charges brought the total of
outgoings up to £77 75.3; this leaving a balance
of £17 135. 8d. for the general treasury of the
English ‘ language.’

The two brothers then in charge of this
preceptory were Sir Nisius Waleys, the preceptor,
and Sir Thomas de Warrenne.

At the camera of Winkburn there was a
manse with garden and dovecote, valued at
16s. 8d.; arable land worth £15, and meadow
and pasture, 76s. ; underwood (beyond that used
in the house), 28s.; a windmill, 205. ; assize
rents, £9 115. 2d.; customary labour and service,
45s. 7d.; and court pleas and perquisites, 16s. 8d.
The messuage of Danethorpe, with its lands,
meadows, and pasture, was let out to farm at the
annual rent of 10 marks. ‘The appropriated
church of Winkburn, with the chapel of Maple-
beck, was of the yearly value of 25} marks ;
common pasture for twenty cows produced 40s.,
and the same for 500 sheep 41s. The total
receipts and profits of the camera realized 93
marks 85. 5d.

The outgoings included a composition of
66s. 8d. for tithes to the rector of Kneesall ; for
tithes and archidiaconal fees, gs. gd; the
stipends of two chaplains for the church of
Winkburn and its chapel, 60s. There was also
a payment of ros. a year for life to Richard de
Coppegrave," who is also entered as a ‘corrodian,’
that is in receipt of board and lodging. ‘The
repairs of the house cost 6s. 8d., and a like sum
was expended on wax, wine, and oil for the
church and chapel. The expenses of the house,
that is for the sustenance of the preceptor or
- warden, the chaplain, and household servants,
amounted to 60s.; for bread and corn, grain for
brewing, £4; kitchen expenses, 785. ; stipends

1 Richard de Coppegrave was ordained priest in
the church of Blyth by Archbishop Giffard on
20 September 1274; he must therefore at this time
have been eighty-eight years of age. York Epis.
Reg. Giffard, fol. 93.

and clothing for five servants, 335. 4d. ; robe,
mantle, &c., for the warden, 335. 4d. ; and 2s. for
the warden’s page.

The sum of the expenditure came to 30 marks
8s. 5d., leaving a balance of 60 marks for the
general treasury. Brother William Hustwayt
was at that time warden.

Perhaps the most interesting item in these
accounts is the very large sum of {22 Ios.
(fully £400 at the present value of money)
entered as confraria, which was collected through-
out the county of Nottingham yearly by the
two clerks appointed for that purpose. The
confraria was a voluntary contribution made by
the order throughout England, which Arch-
bishop Romayne commended to the clergy of this
county, as we have seen, in 1287. It seems to
have been collected by a house-to-house visita-
tion, The whole amount gathered in England
in 1338 amounted to about (900; so that
Nottinghamshire, when we consider its compara-
tively small size, contributed an exceptionally
large share to the fund for holding the infidels in
check. The Prior of St. John’s, Clerkenwell,
visited each preceptory annually at the expense
of the house visited.

The chief expense was the maintenance of
the household, and it should be remembered
that most of the provisions would be furnished
from the stock of the estate. In the hall were
three tables, the first for the preceptor, his
confrater and chaplain, and any corrodian of
good birth; the second for the full servan's ;
and the third for the hinds or labourers. The
rule as to hospitality was a stringent one, and
guests or wayfarers would be placed at table
according to their station. In the stricter days
of the order there were never more than two
meals a day, and the food was moderate. The
two collectors attached to each bailiwick were
enjoined never to feed sumptuously when
entertained on their travels. When dark they
were always to carry a lanthorn, and to hold it
before them when entering a house.

Maplebeck, a chapelry of Winkburn, had
originally belonged to the Templars." Rents
at Sibthorpe, another Templar property, to the
value of 10 marks a year, were in 1338 some-
what strangely returned to the Lincoln bailiwick
of Temple Bruer. ‘The transference of the
church of Sibthorpe is mentioned under the
college of that place. The rectory of Marnham
was at that date farmed, up to 1340, by Sir
Robert de Silkeston at 30 marks a year ; whilst
at Flawforth there was a messuage and a
plough-land let for life to Thomas de Sibthorpe
at 7 marks a year.

From the Valor of 1534 it appears that the
bailiwick of Ossington was then merged in the
larger one of Newland, Yorkshire, of which

™ Larking, Knights Hospitallers in Engl. 158.
8 Tbid. 161.

143

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Thomas Pemberton was preceptor. The New-
land returns included £20 a year from rent and
farms in Ossington bailiwick, and also £5 25.
from Roger Rogerson the bailiff of the same.

In addition to this rents and farms in Winkburn
came to £19, bringing the total up to £44 25.
Bailiff Roger was in receipt of a stipend of

$2 tas 4a

FRIARIES

15. THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS OF
NOTTINGHAM

The exact date of the settlement in Notting-
ham of the Franciscans or Grey Friars is not
known, but it was an accomplished fact before
the year 1230. This order of mendicants only
reached England in 1224, so that they were not
long in obtaining a foothold in this busy centre
of the Midlands. The Nottingham house was
one of the eight friaries in the wardenship of
Oxford; it was situate in the south-west
corner of Broadmarsh, not far from the castle.

The earliest known record occurs on the
Close Rolls of 1230, when Henry III granted
the Friars Minor of Nottingham twenty tie-
beams for the construction of their chapel.
‘Two years later he made them a further grant
of five trees out of the forest of Sherwood for
the stalls of their chapel,’ and yet another grant
for the same purpose in 1234.° In 1236-7 the
friars were constructing a quay on the river, and
received two royal grants of timber for this
purpose. In 1242 the friars had a gift of ten
oaks out of the hay of Willey.’ Fifteen oaks
were granted them by Henry III, in April 1247,
for their buildings, and again in August of the
same year six more oaks for their infirmary.®

A few years afterwards the friars began to
build a church of stone, and the king granted them
licence in 1256 to take stone from his Notting-
ham quarry for that purpose ;’ but they were
still maintaining their other wooden buildings,
and had a grant of twelve Sherwood oaks for
their repair in 1258.8 In 1261 grants were
made them of twenty oaks from Bestwood for
the dormitory and chapter-house ;* and in 1272
they had a further grant of ten oaks for building
purposes. 1°

Reverting to a much earlier transaction of this
reign, it may be mentioned that Henry II in
1235 issued a writ of ///scate in favour of the
bailiff’ of Nottingham with respect to 55. due
yearly for a place in that town wherein the

M Vakr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 68-9.

1 Close, 14 Hen. HI, m. 14.

? Ibid. 16 Hen. III, m. 3.

* Ibid. 19 Hen. III, m. 23.

‘Ibid. 20 Hen. III, m. 4; 21 Hen. III, m. 3.
5 Ibid. 26 Hen. III, m. 2.

§ Ibid. 31 Hen. III, m. 9, 5.

7 Ibid. 40 Hen. III, m. 11d.

8 Ibid. 42 Hen. III, m. 23.

° Ibid. 45 Hen. III, m. 20, 15.

Friars Minor were lodged, and which the king
out of charity had pardoned to the friars so long
as they lodged there.”

The Patent Rolls of Edward I and II yield
some further disconnected information as to this
friary.

On 28 April 1277 the Crown licence was
granted, after inquisition by the sheriff of
Nottingham, to the Franciscans to stop and
inclose a lane adjoining the wall of their close, to
effect a slight extension of their site.’? In 1303
licence was granted after inquisition to the same
friars to make an underground conduit from
their spring in Atherwell to their house within
the town, and to lead the watercourse through
it..3 This licence was renewed in 1311, when
Edward II sanctioned the carrying of this sub-
terranean conduit through the king’s lands and
park at Nottingham." Tvhis spring is probably
identical with the ‘ Frere Watergang’ mentioned
in 1395."

Commission was issued by Archbishop Romayne
in May 1286 to the Franciscan Friars, in highly
laudatory terms, authorizing them to absolve
those who had been excommunicated for laying
violent hands on clerks—cases which by right
or privilege were reserved to the diocesan, but
which were by his letters patent permitted to
these friars, but not in any way to exceed
canonical letters. These powers were to be
held by special friars of the different houses in
the diocese, including the one at Nottingham,
but were revocable at pleasure.’®

In January 1292-3 the same archbishop
licensed the warden of the Friars Minor of
Nottingham to absolve excommunicate persons
who had been guilty of violence against clerks
as above. A like licence was again issued to
the warden in October 1294."

The new stone church of the Friars Minor
was finished early in the 14th century. On
24 September 1303 Archbishop Corbridge
issued his commission for the dedication of this
church and churchyard.’* Further progress was

* Ibid. 56 Hen. III, m. 9.

" Pat. 19 Hen. II, m. 4.

? Pat. 5 Edw. I, m. 20.

® Pat. 21 Edw. I, m. 27.

* Pat. 5 Edw. II, m. 21.

* Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 282.

** York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 69d.
” Ibid. fol. 79d. 84.

Relig. Inst. of Old Nott. i, 68.

144

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

then made with side aisles or chapels, for
another commission was granted in 1310 to
any Catholic bishop to dedicate the altars of
these friars,

Mention is made in a deed of 1359 of the
cross (exterior) of the Friars Minor in Notting-
ham.” This cross, which stood on the Marsh
in Greyfriars Gate, is again referred to in a
document of 1365.7

The first entry relative to these Franciscans
among the town records is a bequest of 40d.
made to them in 1382 by John de Wolaton.”

In 1393 one John Leveret of Pinchbeck
fled to the church of the Friars Minor for
sanctuary—the offence he had committed is not
stated, but he broke sanctuary and was seized at
Coddington, near Newark, and committed to
the king’s gaol at Nottingham.”

The Franciscan rule, like that of the other
mendicant orders, did not permit of the accepting
of any grant of land save that of the site of their
house and of adjoining plots used for the purpose
of extension ; but the acceptance of small testa-
mentary bequests of money for masses was not
forbidden. Among such bequests to the Notting-
ham Franciscans may be mentioned: Simon de
Staunton, rector of Staunton, 40s. in 1346;
Richard Collin, 20s. in 1368; Robert de Mor-
ton, § marks in 1396; John Taunesley, 5 marks
in 1413; John Pool, 35. 4d. in 1479; Sir Henry
Pierrepont, 40s. in 1489; Sir Gervase Clifton,
22s.in 1508; Robert Batemanson, 10s. in 1512;
Sir R. Basset, 6s. 8d. in 1522; Thomas Wil-
loughby, alderman of Nottingham, 10s, in 1524;
and John Rose, alderman of Nottingham, /°5 in
1528.4

Among the presentments at the Nottingham
sessions of July 1500 is that of Friar William
Bell, warden of the Friars Minor, who was
accused of being an accomplice in a charge of
incontinence against another man.”

In January 1521-2 ‘the Warden oth Gray-
fres’ was presented for ‘ baudre.’

The surrender of this friary was made to the
king’s commissioner, Dr. London, on 5 February
1539, being the same day as that of the White
Friars of this town. It was signed by Thomas
Basford, warden, and seven other friars, namely
Thomas Ryppon, Francis Bryce, Robert Hamp-
ton, Robert Alyne, John Chester, Robert Mor-
ton, and Roger Stanley.”

After remaining in the hands of the Crown
for nine years, the house and site of the Grey

19 Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 238.

70 Anct. D. (P.R.O.) C. 3236.

1 Nott. Bor. Rec. 1, 432.

32 Ibid. i, 218.

2 [bid. i, 256.

* Test, Ebor. (Surtees Soc.) ; Nott. Bor. Rec. passim.
% Nott. Bor. Rec iii, 74.

36 Ibid. iii, 355. ; a

7 Dep. Keeper’s Rep. viii, App. ii, 35.

Friars was granted in 1548 to Thomas Hene-
age.”®

There is a cast of the 15th-century seal of
this friary at the British Museum.” It bears
St. Francis, three-quarter length, praying be-
neath a rich canopied niche ; the inner border is
engrailed. Legend :—

SIGILLU * CONVENTUS * FRATRUM * MINOR °

NOTINGHAMIE *

There is also at the Museum an imperfect
impression of the seal of Thomas the warden,
attached toa charter of 1520.°° The Virgin
and Child are shown in a canopied niche, with
tabernacled sides. There is a smaller niche
above with an imperfect subject. The legend
is broken away excepting the four first letters of
SIGILLUM.

16. THE CARMELITE FRIARS OF
NOTTINGHAM

The house of the White Friars or Carmelites
of Nottingham was situated between Moothall
Gate and St. James’s Lane in the parish of St.
Nicholas. It is generally reputed to have been
founded about 1276, by Reginald, Lord Grey of
Wilton, and Sir John Shirley, kt. ;*1 but all the
foundation that was permissible for a friary of the
mendicant orders was the gift of a site. There
is, however, an entry on the Close Rolls at
the end of the reign of Henry III which shows
that the Carmelites had been established here
at a far earlier date. In 1272 they obtained a
grant from the king of ten oaks to repair their
church.*? That Reginald de Grey was the donor
of a site is, however, established by a confirma-
tion charter granted by Edward II in March
1319, wherein he is mentioned as granting to
the brethren of Mount Carmel two (adjacent)
plots of land, the one described as being in the
French borough of Nottingham and the other in
St. James’s Lane. The same charter mentions
a variety of subsequent grants of adjoining plots
of land for the extension of their site,which were
the only gifts of land permissible to be held by
friars, by William de Crophill and Agnes his wife,
John de Wymondswold, William le Chaundeler,
William de Watton, Henry Putrel, William de
Lonnesdale, Ralph de Lokynton, Alice widow of
John le Palmere, Henry Curtyse and Agnes his
wife, Nicholas de Shelford, William de Strelley,
John le Collier, William de Chesterfield and
Claricia his wife with their sons and daughters,
John le Netherd and Sarah his wife, Robert le
Carter, Ranulph le Leper, John son of Walter

® Deering, Nott. 52.
® Seal Casts, Ixx, 51.
3° Add. Chart. 5838.
51 Deering, Nott. 53.
53? Close, 56 Hen. III, m. 5.

2 145 19

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

de Thorneton, William de Mekesburgh, Thomas
de Radford, chaplain, Cecilia daughter of Ralph de
Ufton, and Robert de Ufton. The king con-
cludes his confirmation charter by granting re-
mission to these friars of all secular exactions, as
well as a rent of 5s. 6d. due to the Crown from
certain of the places, ‘on account of the special
affection that we have and bear to the said prior
and brethren, and in order that they may the
more freely and devoutly attend to divine ser-
vices.*? These numerous small gifts of parcels
of land or tenements, chiefly situated in Saturday
Market and Moothall Gate, are clear evidence
of the affection of the townsfolk for these White
Friars.

Three years prior to this Edward II, when
at Clipston, had made an important grant to
these Carmelites, not recited in the confirma-
tion charter, whereby he assigned to them the old
chapel of St. James adjacent to their dwelling-
place, which had belonged to the priory of Len-
ton, but which the king had induced that convent
to exchange for another piece of land in order
that he might bestow it on the Carmelites.*

In October 1319 licence was obtained for the
bestowal on the friars of yet another plot of land,
80 ft. in length by 60 ft. in width, the donor
being Hugh de Bingham, chaplain.

Licence was obtained in 1327 for the Prior
and friars of the order of Mount Carmel, Not-
tingham, to acquire a rent of 135. 4d. in Notting-
ham and to convey the same to the parson of
St. Nicholas, in exoneration of the same sum
due from them to him as tithes for land within
his parish, acquired for the enlargement of their
house.*®

The earliest reference in the town records
to the Carmelities is under the year 1311, when
an agreement that had been made on 25 March
1307, in the garden of the Friars Carmelite, as
to an association for sustaining the light of Our
Lady, is cited.”

On 3 April 1379 Brother Robert, Prior of the
Nottingham Carmelities, made plaint in the local
court against John Carter, his servant, on a plea
of trespass and contempt azainst the statute. But
John placed himself i musertcordia, and swore
before the mayor and bailiffs on the Holy Gospel
to serve the prior and convent faithfully until
the feast of St. Nicholas, and to be no more re-
bellious against them.*8

Henry de Whitley of Nottingham in October
1393 killed his wife Alice in the night-time and
fled to the church of the Friars Carmelite for
sanctuary, and could not be taken as he kept to
the church. Whereupon the town authorities

® Pat. 12 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 23.
* Pat. g Edw. II, pt. i, m. 9.

* Pat. 13 Edw. II, m 31.

* Pat 1 Edw. III, pt. iii, m. 20.
3’ Nott, Bor. Rec. i, 72.

* Thid. i, 208.

seized his goods as those of a felon; they were
valued at 115, 24d.

Mention is made in 1442, in an action for the
detention of goods, of Robert Sutton, B.D., who
was at that time Prior of the Nottingham Car-
melites.*°

John Mott, Prior of the Carmelites, complained
of John Purvis, in 1482, that on Monday next
before the feast of All Hallows he came with
swords and clubs and other arms and broke into
the house and chamber of the prior and took
away two copes, one of worsted and one of white
say, valued at 6 marks ; a violet scapulary of
woollen cloth, valued at 155.; a silvered maser,
ornamented and gilded, 26s. 8d.; a silver cup,
£45 a set of amber beads, 10s.; a gold signet,
40s. ; and divers other things, £10; making a
total damage of £23. The defendant appeared
in person, justifying all that he did, and the
court ordered the matter to be placed before a
jury.*?

In March 1494-5 Thomas Gregg, Prior of
the Carmelites, took action in the Nottingham
court against Thomas Newton, draper, for having
on 6 November last, by force and arms, to wit
with clubs and knives, entered the house and in-
closure of the White Friars, dug up the soil with
the plaintiffs’ spades and picks, pulled down a large
tenter,” broke a furnace of lead, and done other
grievous damage to the extent of 40s. At the same
time Gregg brought a second action against the
same defendant for neglecting to well and suffi-
ciently repair, within a certain time according to
promise, the plaintiff's house or mansion wherein
he dwelt, at the gates of the house of friars, where-
by he had sustained damage to the value of 205.8

In the following year an action was brought
against Prior Gregg by William Stark, mason,
to recover the sum of Ios. alleged to be due as
balance for the repair of the east window of the
quire of the Carmelite church, over the high
altar. Stark and another had convenanted to do
the work for £3, but they had only received 4os.,
and the prior would not pay the balance of 20s.
due to Stark, though frequently asked.“

In 1513 an action was brought by Thomas
Smithson the Carmelite prior, in conjunction with
Thomas Bradley his brother friar, against Thomas
Marsh, clerk of the vicar of Marnham, for a debt
of 2s. 8d. which he owed them. The friars stated
through their attorney that whereas Marsh had
engaged Thomas Bradley to celebrate mass in
the chapel of St. James on the bridge over the
Trent for three days a week during five weeks,
and although Bradley had duly celebrated for
the five weeks and for one day besides, at the

* Ibid. 254.

“Ibid. 328.

“ Tenter was the name of a frame for stretching
cloth.

“Nott Bor. Rec iii, 28, 30.

“Thid. 42.

“ Ibid. ii, 176.

146

Wevseck ABBEY We rpeck ABBEY

Carmexite Friars or NottTincuam

Beauvace Priory

Franciscan Friars or Nottincuam

Notrincuamsutre Monastic Seats: Puate II

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

rate of 4d. for each mass, the sum of 2s. 8d. was
still owing, although payment had often been
asked.” No friar could receive personal pay-
ment: the mass money would go to the com-
munity ; hence the action to recover was taken
in the name of the prior as well as in that of the
friar who had performed this service.

When Henry VIII was at Nottingham in
August 1511, in the days when he was zealous
for the unreformed faith, he made an offering,
doubtless in person, at the Rood of the White
Friars.*®

Richard Sherwood, Prior of the Nottingham
Carmelites, obtained a pardon from the king on
10 May 1532 for having killed William Bacon,
one of his brother friars, by a blow given in a
quarrel which arose when they were drinking in
a chamber of the house. The blow was struck
on 21 February, and the recipient died on the
following day.”

The general popularity of both houses of Not-
tingham Friars throughout their history is attested
by the frequency of small bequests, such as they
were allowed to receive. Among such bequests
by will may be mentioned those of Simon de
Stanton, 40s. in 1346; Thomas de Chaworth,
6s. 8d. in 1347; Richard Collier, 20s. in 1368 ;*
John de Wollaton, 40s. in 1382 ;*° Robert de
Morton, 5 marks in 1396; John Tannesley,
5 marks in 1414 ;°° Sir Henry Pierrepont, 40s.
in 1419 ;°! Sir Gervase Clifton, 22s. in 1508;
Robert Batemanson, Ios. in 1512 ;** Roger Eyre,
of Holme, Derbyshire, ten fodder of lead and 40
days’ work of a mason, in 1515 ; Sir R. Basset, of
Fledborough, 6s. 8d. in 1522; Thomas Wil-
loughby, alderman of Nottingham, 10s. in 1524 ;
and John Rose, alderman of Nottingham, £5 in
1528.8

The surrender of the house of the Nottingham
Carmelites was made on 5 February 1539 and
signed by Roger Cappe, prior, and six of the
brothers, namely William Smithson, William
Frost, Robert Wilson, William Cooke, John
Roberts, and William Thorpe. Ambrose Clarke
and John Redyng were appointed their attorneys
to deliver possession to John London and Edward
Baskerfield, clerks, for the king’s use.*

In November 1541 the Crown granted the
late priory of White Friars in Nottingham, with
a garden and other lands in the parish of St.
Nicholas and certain lands in the parish of St.
Mary, to James Sturley of Nottingham.

50 Tbid.

5! Test. Ebor. (Surtees Soc.), iii, 44.
5? Visit. of Southwell.

58 Test. Ebor. (Surtees Soc.), passim.
* Rymer, Foedera, xiv, 621.

> Pat. 33 Hen. VIII, pt. iv, m. 8.

Two of the Carmelite Friars of the Notting-
ham house were of some celebrity during the
14th century. Philip Boston, a native of Not-
tingham and a Carmelite Friar of the same town,
‘studied Philosophy and Divinity at Oxford, but
returned again to Humanity and became a famous
poet and orator, yet so as that he was a fre-
quent preacher to the people, and according to
Leland, left behind him in writing learned Ser-
mons and Epistles and died in 1320.’

John Clipston, a Carmelite Friar of Notting-
ham, was also born in this town. He was Doc-
tor and Professor of Divinity at Cambridge :
‘he taught Divinity there long and explained
Divine Mysteries with much applause to himself
and improvement to his hearers, ever following the
paths of virtue and religion, as close as those of
literature.’ He left behind him many writings,
including Expositions of the Bible, a Commen-
tary on St. John, Scholastic Disputations and a
variety of sermons for particular seasons and fes-
tivals. He died and was buried at his monastery
in Nottingham in the year 1378.”

Priors OF THE CARMELITES

Robert, occurs 1379 *

Thomas Gregg, occurs 1495-6 ©
Thomas Smithson, occurs 1513 ©
Richard Sherwood, occurs 1532 ®
Roger Cappe, surrendered 1539 ™

There is a cast of a 15th-century impression
of the seal of this friary at the British Museum.®
It represents within a carved and cusped border
of eight points the Blessed Virgin crowned, with
the Holy Child on the right arm. Before her
kneels the founder (Reginald Lord Grey) holding
his shield of arms, barry of eight, a label of eight
points. The background is diapered with loz-
enges. Legend :—

«++ COMVNITATIS D.. « NOTINGAMIE ORDINIS
BEATE MARIE DE CAR .« « « « « «

17, THE OBSERVANT FRIARS OF
NEWARK

When Henry VII became a special patron of
the reformed branch of the Franciscans termed
Friars Observant, he founded several English
houses, which were chiefly refoundations of
original Franciscan establishments. But there

55 Stevens’s continuation of Dugdale, Mon. ii, 162.
Tbid. ii, 165. 58 Notts. Bor. Rec. i, 208
8 Thid. ii, 176. Thid. 328.

1 Tbid. ili, 28, 30, 42. “Ibid. 124.

Pat. 24 Hen. VIII, pt. i, m. 20.

“ Rymer, Foedera, xiv,621. Seal Casts, Ixx, 52.

147

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

appears to be no evidence that there was any house
of Grey Friars at Newark prior to the days of
that king. His founding of the Newark house
of this severe order occurred about the year
1499. By a codicil to his will, Henry VII in
1509 left £200 to the convent ‘that by his
succour and aid was newly begun in the town of
Newark.’ ”

In the Dodsworth MSS. occurs the mention
of ‘Gabriel, fader of the Observant friers at
Newark.’ ®

Among payments made by Henry VIII in
1538 there is entry of 40s. to Richard Lucas for
‘bringing one Bonaventure a friar of Newark.’ ®

Early in 1539 Dr. London, who was the
chief instrument of Henry VIII in the suppres-

sion of the friars, wrote asking for a commission
from Cromwell to take the surrender of the
friars at Newark.”

The ex-friar Richard Ingworth, Bishop of
Dover, writing to Cromwell in March 1539
said that he had recently received ‘to the king’s
use’ twelve houses of friars, one of which was
that of Newark ; they were all poor, each house
had a chalice of 6 to 10 oz., and those he had
with him.”

Richard Andrewes, of Hailes, Gloucestershire,
and Nicholas Temple were the recipients, in
July 1543, of much monastic property in the
Midlands : inter alia of the site, churchyard and
certain gardens of the ‘late house of Augustinian
Friars’ in Newark, Notts.”

COLLEGES

18. THE COLLEGE OF CLIFTON

Sir Gervase Clifton in 1349 obtained licence
to give eleven messuages and certain lands in
Clifton and Stanton on the Wold, with the
advowson of the latter, to three chaplains cele-
brating divine service in the church of Clifton
by Nottingham, for the good estate of Sir Gervase
and of Isabel his wife.?

His great-great-grandson, Sir Robert Clifton,
began in 1476 to change this three-fold chantry
into a small collegiate establishment, increasing
the endowments and causing it to be dedicated to
the Holy Trinity. The three priests had a man-
sion in common, and the senior was termed the
warden. Sir Robert died in 1478, and the
founding of the college was concluded by his
son Sir Gervase, an esquire of the body to
Edward IV anda knight of the Bath at the
coronation of Richard III.?

Sir Gervase assigned certain lands to Lenton
Priory on condition that they paid £104 year to
the warden of Clifton College to celebrate for
his soul and for the soul of William Booth, late
Archbishop of York. Sir Robert had married
Alice sister to the archbishop. This £10 is
entered among the annual outgoings of the
priory at the time of the Valor of 1534.2 The
clear annual value of the college was at this time
entered as £20 2s. 6d. ; of which sum the warden,
John Fynnes, had £6 135. 4d., and the two fel-
lows or chantry priests(John Hemsell and Thomas
Rusby) £6 each.‘

Coll. Anglo. Minorit. i, 211 $ ti, 39.

& Brown, Hist. of Newark, 42. There can be no
doubt that this refers to the Observant Friary ; owing
to a misconception as to the word ‘convent’ there
has been much idle local speculation as to the site of
this convent and as to the order to which it belonged.

® Dods. MSS. (Bodl.), xcix, fol. 200.

® Arundel MSS. xcvii, fol. 284.

™L. and P. Hen. J'III. xiv (1), 3.

The suppression commissioners of 1547-8
returned the annual value as £21 5s. 10d. The
same warden and priests were resident.®

19. THE CHANTRIES OR COLLEGE
OF NEWARK

Although not styled a college in pre-Reforma-
tion documents, the coalition in common life of
a large number of chantry priests of the great
parish church of St. Mary Magdalen, Newark,
is more deserving of the name of college than
the much smaller foundations of a like kind in
Nottinghamshire, such as those of Ruddington,
Sibthorpe, Tuxford, or Clifton. It is therefore
thought well to give a brief sketch of these
combined chantries under Religious Houses.

One of the earliest of these chantries was that
founded in 1330 at the altar of St. Laurence by
Maud Saucemer of Newark, for her soul when
dead, for her husband William, and for their
respective fathers and mothers. A rent of six
marks was to be paid out of the monastery of
Wellow by Grimsby. The presentation rested
with Maud for her life and then with the vicar
of Newark, taking counsel with six of the more
trusty parishioners, preference being given to the
kin of her and her husband. The chantry
priest was to work in harmony with the priest of

"L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (1), 413.

™ Pat. 3¢ Hen. VILL, pt. iii, m, 12, Theré-js no
other reference to any settlement of Austin Friars in
Newark, and it seems clear that it is a slip. The
seal attributed to the Austin Friars by Brown (Hist.
of Newark, 63) is shown by its legend to be that of a
secular cleric.

* Thoroton, Notts. i, 105-6.

*Tbid. 106-7.

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 140.

‘Ibid, +, oe tee

*Coll. and Chant. Cert. Notts. xxxvii.

148

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

another chantry founded by William Saucemer,
her late husband.®

Thomas Sibthorpe, rector of Beckingham,
obtained licence in 1349 to assign a messuage in
Newark to Robert de Alyngton, Robert Leef, and
William de Stokum, chaplains respectively to the
perpetual chantries founded for the souls of
William Saucemer, of Maud his wife, and of
Master William de Glentham, for them and
their successors to celebrate divine service for
the souls aforesaid, as well as for the souls of
Thomas and Isabel Durant.’

Later in the same year (which was that of the
Black Death, when many chantries were founded
by survivors) confirmation was granted of an
indenture of William, Prior of Shelford, and his
convent, granting to John de Wodhouse, perpetual
chaplain of the altar of Corpus Christi, to cele-
brate at that altar for Alan Fleming and Alice
his wife, their sons and daughters and other
persons, and for their souls when dead, a rent of
5 marks to be paid at Newark yearly.®

Another chantry was founded in this church in
November 1349 by John Braye, king’s yeoman
and usher of the exchequer, endowed with 6
marks yearly.®

The chantry priests continued to increase, and
somewhat later in the reign of Edward III Alice
Fleming (after the death of her husband in 1361,
to whose memory a noble brass is still preserved)
founded a common mansion house for all the
chantry priests, in order ‘that they shulde be
commensalls and associate togithere within the
said mansion as by the licence of Kinge Edwarde
the iij dothe appeare.’ °

When the Valor of 1534 was drawn up,
fifteen of these Newark chantry priests, all cele-
brating in the great parish church, are named,
together with the amount of their respective
stipends, which varied from £3 8s. odd. to
£5 175. 810”

Further particulars can be gleaned as to these
chantries from the return of the commissioners
of Henry VIII in 1545, preparatory to their
dissolution.

They make mention of (1) the chantry of
St. Nicholas, at St. Nicholas altar ; (2) the Durant
chantry, at the altar of St. James ; (3) the chantry
of Maud Saucemer, at the altar of St. Laurence ;
(4) the chantry of William Saucemer, at the
altar of St. Laurence—here the morrow mass
was celebrated at four o’clock every morning all
the year round; (5) the chantry of William
Wansey and others, at St. Katherine’s altar ;

®Pat. 21 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 31, &c. (inspeximus
and confirmation).

7 Pat. 22 Edw. III, pt. iii, m. 10.

® Pat. 23 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 11.

*Tbid. pt. iii, m. 12.

Chant. and Coll. Cert. Notts. xiii, 28.
common chantry house stood in Appleton Gate.

"Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 189-91.

This

(6) Alan Fleming’s chantry, at Corpus Christi
altar ; (7) Isabel Caldwell’s chantry, at the same
altar ; (8) Robert Caldwell’s chantry, at the same
altar, for a daily mass of Corpus Christi ; (9) the
chantry of William Newark, Archdeacon of
Huntingdon ; (10) the chantry of the Blessed
Trinity, at the Holy Trinity altar ; (11 and 12)
the joint chantries of All Saints and the Nativity
of Our Lady, founded in 1367 by Simon Surfleet
and other inhabitants, ‘in consideration that
Newark is a great town and a thorowfare and the
vicar and his parish priest were not sufficient to
find the cure, to the intent that two chauntry
priests should say Mass Mattyns and other divine
service and pray for the founder’s souls and all
Christian souls’: (13) Foster’s chantry, founded
1452 by John Burton, vicar of Newark, Thomas
Foster, priest, and others, at the Trinity altar ;
(14) a chantry for Edward III and his mother
and his queen and for the brethren and sisters of
the Trinity Gild, at the Trinity altar ; and (15)
a chantry founded by John Leeke and others,
for a priest to ‘continually keep the quire at
Mattins, Mass and Evenin song’ &c.¥

Another report was made on these chantries,
immediately prior to their extinction, by the
commissioners of Edward VI in 1547. On that
occasion the report was expected to include
comments on the degree of scholarship possessed
by the chantry priests. One of the number
was pronounced to be ‘honest and _ lerned,’
another ‘lerned,’ a third ‘somewhat lerned,’
a fourth ‘something lerned’, whilst nine were
written off as ‘ unlerned,’ 8

On their suppression the chantry priests of
Newark obtained pensions, varying in accordance
with their age and the worth of the chantry,
from £6 to £3 10s.

20. THE COLLEGE OF RUDDINGTON
William Babington, son of Sir William Babing-

ton and Margaret his wife, obtained the licence
of Henry VI in 1459 to found a college at Rud-
dington for a warden and four chaplains ; two
of the chaplains were to officiate in the chapel of
St. Andrew within the church of St. Peter of
Flawforth ® and two in the chapel within the
manor of Chilwell. They were to pray for the
good estate of Henry VI, Margaret his queen,
Edward Prince of Wales, William Babington the
founder and Elizabeth his wife, and for the souls
of the founder’s parents, of Robert Prebend
sometime Bishop of Dunblane,!® and of Richard,

™ Chant. and Coll. Cert. Notts. xii, 14-20.

18 Ibid. xxxvii. 4 Brown, Hist. of Newark, 72.

8 Near Ruddington, now decayed.

18 Robert de Prebenda was consecrated Bishop of
Dunblane (Scotland) in 1258. Archbishop Wickwane
about 1280 gave commission to Robert, Bishop of
Dunblane (parochianus noster), who had constructed an
altar in honour of God and the Blessed Virgin and

149

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Hugh, and Robert Martell. The lands assigned
to this chantry or college were of the value of
£25 at the time of its foundation.” Richard
Martell of Ruddington and Hugh Martell of
Chilwell had previously established a chantry at
Flawforth, early in the preceding century.

When the Valor was taken in 1534 it was
found that the lands at Chilwell, Bramcote,
Lenton, Clifton, Clapton, Beeston, and Rudding-
ton pertaining to the college were then worth
£30 a year. Henry Scott, the warden, drew a
stipend of 8 marks; Edward Ersden, who
celebrated at Ruddington, and William Holome,
who celebrated at Chilwell, each drew 7 marks.
The two other chaplaincies, the one for Rud-
dington and the other for Chilwell, had both
been vacant for some time.'®

When the chantry and college commissioners
of Henry VIII made their survey of this county
in 1545-6 they reported of Ruddington that
there were divers chantries founded there by
the ancestor of Edward Sheffield esq., but no
foundation was shown them, Their value was
declared to be {£24 135. 4d. a year. Henry
Scott was warden at a stipend of /5 6s. 8d. ;
two chantry priests ought to have been each in
receipt of {4 135. 4d., but for two years (on a
vacancy) Edward Shefheld had retained in his
hands the stipend of one of these priests, and since
then the other had died. The rural dean of
Bingham and the vicar of Ruddington said that
the warden did nothing for his salary, but the
warden himself deposed that he did duty at Chil-
well. The chalice, &c., had been taken away
(from Flawforth) by the warden. There was a
mansion house in Ruddington, then partly in
decay, where the warden and priests used to
dwell.!®

21. THE COLLEGE OF SIBTHORPE

In November 1324 Thomas de Sibthorpe
obtained licence to alienate in mortmain a mes-
suage, a toft, 50 acres of land and 5 acres of
meadow, in Hawksworth and Aslockton, to a
chaplain to celebrate daily in a chapel to be built
on the north side of the church of St. Peter of
Sibthorpe, to be dedicated in honour of the
Blessed Virgin, St. John Baptist, and St. Thomas
the Martyr, for the souls of himself, his father,
mother, brothers, sisters and ancestors, and others.”
In October of the following year the just cited

the Apostle St. Andrew and All Saints, in the new
chapel which he had erected at Flawforth, the place
of his birth, to dedicate it at any time he pleased.
York Epis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 44; Harl. MS,
6970, fol. 78.

" Ing. a.g.d. 37 Hen. WI, 4022 ; Thoroton, Notts.
i, 126-7.

"8 Valr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 168.

® Coll. and Chant. Cert. Notts, xiii, 5.

™ Pats 1S Edw H,: pt i, ms17,

licence was surrendered and vacated. The
chapel was then built, and a somewhat extended
alienation was sought and obtained by Thomas
de Sibthorpe. At the same time Thomas and
William le Mareschal of Sibthorpe obtained
licence to alienate 3 messuages, 3 oxgangs, 50
acres of land, 20 acres of meadow, and 10s. rent
in Sibthorpe, Syerston, Elston, Aslockton, and
Thrumpton, to John Notebroun, chaplain of the
chantry, just ordained by the said Thomas in this
new chapel, to celebrate daily for their good estate
and for their souls after death and also for the
souls of Maud mother of the said Thomas, and
for the brothers and sisters and ancestors of
Thomas and of Simon de Sibthorpe, &c.”4

By the time that the beginning of the reign of
Edward III was reached, this chantry began to
assume collegiate proportions. In April 1327
Thomas de Newmarket, kt., confirmed the grant
by Thomas de Sibthorpe, presumably a native of
Sibthorpe, who was then rector of the church of
Beckingham, Lincolnshire, founder of the chapel
and chantry, to John Notebroun, described as
chaplain and keeper of the altar of St. Mary in
the chapel, of certain lands in Hawksworth, held
of the said Sir Thomas as chief lord of the fee.”
In July of the same year Geoffrey le Scrop, kt.,
licensed Thomas de Sibthorpe to assign all the
lands that he held of Sir Geoffrey, either in
demesne or in service, in Sibthorpe, Elston, and
Syerston to certain chaplains or other men of
relizion, to celebrate divine service daily in the
newly constructed chapel.”

In February 1328 the deed was enrolled of
Sir Geoftrey le Scrop, whereby he licensed John
Notebroun, now called warden of the chantry in
St. Mary’s Chapel, and John Edwalton, chaplain
of the said chantry, to acquire three messuages,
40 acres of land, and 10 acres of meadow in the
three parishes mentioned above, to be held by
them and their successors as wardens and chaplains
of the chapel, without making any rent or ser-
vice or custom to Geoffrey and his heirs.* In
November of the same year William son of
Geoffrey le Clerk of Sibthorpe had licence to
alienate a messuage in Sibthorpe and Syerston,
of the yearly value of 115. 7d., to John de Ed-
walton, chaplain and warden of the chapel of
St. Mary, Sibthorpe, in succession to John Note-
broun, the late warden.”

There was a further advance in 1335, for in
that year Thomas Sibthorpe, rector of Becking-
ham, who is then styled king’s clerk, bestowed
further lands in Sibthorpe and Syerston on John
Cosyn, chaplain and warden of the chapel,
towards the sustentation of the warden, two
chaplains, and a clerk as their server, who

7 Pat. 19 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 20.

” Close, 1 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 14d.
* Ibid. pt. ii, m. 21d,

* Close, 2 Edw. III, m. 36 d.

* Pat. 2 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 10.

150

RELIGIOUS

were to celebrate daily in the said chapel of
St. Mary and in the chapel of St. Anne, in
the church of St. Peter, Sibthorpe, on behalf
of the Sibthorpe family.”

In November 1336 certain small parcels of
land were exchanged in Sibthorpe, to permit of
the enlargement of the dwelling-house of John
Cosyn, the warden.” The endowment of this
collegiate chantry rapidly increased, for in De-
cember of the same year the founder gave fifteen
messuages, a toft, 3 oxgangs, and 170 acres
of land, 50 acres of meadow, and 30s. of rent in
Sibthorpe and five adjoining parishes, together
with the reversion of another parcel, for the
sustenance of the warden and two other chaplains
celebrating divine service daily in the chapel of
St. Mary in the church of St. Peter, Sibthorpe,
and in the chapel of St. Anne, St. Katherine,
St. Margaret, and St. Mary Magdalene, of two
clerks to serve them in the celebration and at
other times, as well as for the finding thirty wax
lights in the church and chapels and a lamp
before the Rood there at certain times.”8

In 1339 John son of Reginald de Aslacton
and Joan his wife assigned certain rents to the
value of 20s. a year towards the provision of the
thirty wax lights in this chapel and church.”
In the same year Thomas de Sibthorpe the
founder, who was then rector of Kingham, Oxon,
transferred certain lands and rents in Beckingham
and other Lincolnshire parishes to John Cosyn as
warden of the chapel at Sibthorpe.*

A yet further extension of this collegiate
chantry occurred in 1340, when Thomas the
founder obtained licence to alienate 6s. 74. of
rents in Sibthorpe and Sutton, together with the
advowson and appropriation of the church of
Sibthorpe, to maintain a warden and four chap-
lains in that church to say daily mass for the soul
of Edward II, for the good estate of the present
king, for his soul after death, for the souls of the
heirs of Edward III, for the said Thomas the
founder and certain others, and also for the dis-
tribution of weekly alms.*4 The advowson of
Sibthorpe had belonged to the Knights Tem-
plars, and was transferred on their suppression to
the Knights Hospitallers. In order tosecure the
advowson and rectory and certain other appur-
tenances, Thomas de Sibthorpe transferred to the
Hospitallers valuable lands at Woolhampton and
Midgham, Berkshire. From the entry of Jan-
uary 1341 recording this exchange on the Patent
Rolls, we find it clearly stated that this appropria-
tion was carried out in order to sustain a warden
and four chaplains in the church, in addition to
the three chaplains and two clerks already ap-

6 Pat. g Edw. III, pt. i, m. 13.

7 Pat. 10 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 15.

78 Thid. m. 11; 12 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 24.
7 Pat. 13 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 33.

30 Ibid. pt. ii, m. 31.

3 Pat. 14 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 10.

HOUSES

pointed ; so that the college then consisted of
eight priests and two clerks. It was further
provided that seven wheaten loaves, each of the
weight of 50s., were to be distributed every
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to the poor of
the parish.”

In this same year, before the justices of the
bench at the pleas at Westminster, judgement
was given in a variety of actions brought against
Warden John Cosyn to recover certain of the
lands wherewith the college had been endowed ;
but in every case the decision was in favour of the
college. Again in 1342 legal attempts were
made to deprive John Cosyn, the warden, of the
advowson and appropriation of the church of
Sibthorpe, but they all failed. In the course of
these pleas John the warden, in his evidence,
mentioned that all the chaplains and clerks as-
sembled in the chapel of St. Anne yearly on the
vigil of the Annunciation, celebrating an anni-
versary for the souls of Simon de Sibthorpe and
others and their heirs, ancestors, and relations, as
for a corpse present, with bell tolling ; and also
in the chapel of St. Mary a like anniversary for
the souls of Thomas de Sibthorpe the founder,
William and Maud his parents, &c., and for all
benefactors, and for the parishioners of the
church ; and that on the Annunciation, directly
after mass, the warden distributed in the church-
yard, among the poorer parishioners who had
attended the mass, 60 farthings or the equiva-
lent in bread, and gave yearly on the same
day to each of the chaplains 2d., and to each
clerk 1.34

Another advance was made in 1343, when
the reversion of the manor of Sibthorpe, valued
at £6 5s. a year, was given to the college, and
two other chaplains were added to the seven
then existing, to pray daily for the souls of the
king’s father and the king and his heir, and for
William and Isabel Durent, and for John son of
Reginald de Aslacton, kt., and Joan his wife.

In 1345 the endowments were increased by
the gift of parcels of land by Reginald son of
Simon de Sibthorpe, which permitted of the
enlargement of the rectory manse, where the
warden and chaplains lived, and also of the en-
largement of the cemetery.** A reiteration of a
previous licence to the founder on the Patent
Rolls, inasmuch as it had originally only been
sealed by the privy seal, brings out the fact that
the endowments were also used for the support
of a poor man who kept the gates of the chap-
lain’s dwelling, and for the finding of a poor

8 Ibid. pt. iii, m. 3.

33 Set forth at great length on the Patent Rolls, 15
Edw. III, pt. 1, m. 43-39.

* Pat. 16 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 25-19.

3 Pat. 17 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 24. This manor
came into the possession of the college in1346 3 Pat. 20
Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 19.

8° Pat. 18 Edw. III, pt. li, m. 1.

151

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

woman of the parish in food and clothing, who
probably served as charwoman.”

Edward III, when staying at his favourite
Nottinghamshire residence of Clipston, in De-
cember 1345, informed the sheriffs, bailiffs,
ministers, and all purveyors and takers of victuals
and other things for the king’s household, that
the king had taken under his special protection
the chapel of St. Mary, Sibthorpe, with the war-
den and chaplains thereof and their lands and
possessions, and that nothing was to be taken of
their crops, hay, horses, carts, carriages, victuals,
or other goods against their will.*

A licence for a further assignment of lands
and rents to the college by the founder in 1399
shows that at that time there were eight chap-
lains and three clerks, in addition to John Cosyn
the warden.*®

John Cosyn the warden died, in all probability
of the plague, in 1349, and was succeeded by
Robert de Kniveton, one of the chaplains.*°

When the Valor Ecclestasticus was drawn up
in 1534, Thomas Magnus was warden of Sib-
thorpe. The clear value of the college or chantry
was declared at £25 18s. 8d. The gross value
was {31 Is. 2d., of which sum £13 65. 8d.
came from the rectory of Sibthorpe.4!. There is
no record of the number of chaplains at that
date.

The surrender of the property that this college
held in Sibthorpe, Hawksworth, Flintham,
Beckingham, Kneeton, Syerston, Elston, Staun-
ton, and Shelton, was signed by Thomas Magnus
on 17 April 1545. The warden is described as
Custos sive Gardianus Gardianati Collegii sive
Cantariae Beatae Mariae de Sybthrope.”

In July of the same year, however, Thomas
Magnus, described as clerk and king’s councillor,
obtained a grant for life, for £197 65. 744d., of
all that had pertained to the college wardenry
or chantry of Sibthorpe, both in Nottinghamshire
and Lincolnshire, as he held them when warden
of the college. On his death remainder was
granted to Richard Whalley and his heirs.‘

WakRDENS OF SIBTHORPE

John Notebroun, 1324 “

John Cosyn, 1335 *

Robert de Kniveton, 1349 *
Thomas Magnus, occurs 1534 7

*’ Pat. 19 Edw. III, pr. ii, m. 31,
88 Ibid. pt. ili, m. 6.

"| Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 186.
“@ Rymer, Foedera, xv, 71.

® Pat. 23 Edw. III, pt ii, m. 3.
" Vaisr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 186.

22. THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF
SOUTHWELL

The mediaeval diocese of York contained, in
the churches of York, Ripon, Beverley, and
Southwell, four ancient foundations of secular
canons. ‘The early history of each is involved
in much obscurity; and the difficulty is in-
creased in the case of Southwell by the uncer-
tainty which prevails as to the date at which
Nottinghamshire became transferred to the see
of York. For reasons given in a former article
it seems probable that the latter event took place
not earlier than the middle of the roth century,
and that it was immediately followed by the
grant to the reigning archbishop of lands which
possessed in great part the boundaries of the
later manor of Southwell.

This is not the place in which to discuss in
detail the very difficult problems presented by
the charter by which the lands in question were
conveyed.*® The charter is only preserved in a
late copy, made by a scribe ignorant of Anglo-
Saxon, and in all probability founded upon an
original already in part illegible. The strongest
witness to its authenticity is the occurrence, in
a clause appended to the delimitation of boun-
daries, of a number of terms, relating to the local
distribution of the land, which became obsolete
in this part of England soon after the Norman
Conquest, and which no later forger would
have been in the least likely to invent. The
date of the charter is given in the text of
the document as 958, which must be corrected
to 956;*° the donor is King Eadwig, and the
donee Oskytel, who was probably translated to
the see of York in the latter year.

Taking, then, the document as it stands, we
may believe that by it the archbishop was put
in possession of a large estate centring in the
vill of Southwell, but including land in a number
of neighbouring hamlets. The charter gives a
list of the ‘ towns’ which belonged to Southwell
“with sake and soke’;° and the latter are
certainly included in the eleven unnamed bere-
wicks which are assigned to Southwell in Domes-
day Book. Their names, as given in the charter,
represent the modern Normanton, Kirklington,
Upton, Fiskerton, Morton, Gibsmere, Goverton,
Bleasby, Halloughton, Farnsfield, and Halam ;
Blidworth, which afterwards formed the western
portion of the manor of Southwell, was only
acquired by the archbishop subsequently to
1066. Within the boundaries of this land there
were several enclaves of territory not subjected
to the archbishop, but even with this reserva-
tion we may safely say that no such extensive

Birch, Cart. Sax. 1029.

“ As by Stubbs, Mem. of St. Dunstan, Introd. p-
Ixxxix, n. 3.

* No instance of this formula has yet been quoted
from any earlier land-book.

152

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

well-defined estate existed at the period in the
hands of any subject between the Humber and
the Welland.

It is probable that the foundation of the col-
legiate church followed hard upon the arch-
bishop’s acquisition of his great estate. Oskytel,
the recipient of the grant in question, is one of
the obscurer Archbishops of York, but he is
known to have been connected with the group
of ecclesiastical reformers of whom Dunstan
was by tradition the leader. It has, therefore,
been contended that such a man, whose personal
relations lay all with the monastic party in the
English Church, would not have been likely to
found an establishment of secular canons ; *? an
argument which is arbitrary at the best, and
scarcely admits the possibility that a prelate might
be a zealous advocate of monasticism and yet
recognize the need of working by means of men
outside the rule. In so far as our knowledge at
present extends, it certainly implies that the
church of Southwell should pay the honours of
a founder to Archbishop Oskytel.®

The new foundation was destined for a life of
unexampled length, but it is more than a century
after the times of Eadwig and Oskytel before
materials sufficient for a connected narrative of
its fortunes begin to accumulate. By 1000, as
we have seen, the church contained the shrine
of St. Eadburh. In 1051 Archbishop At lfric
Puttoc died at Southwell, an event which prob-
ably implies the existence of an archiepiscopal
residence in the vicinity of the church.* /El-
fric’s successor Cynesige (1051-60) gave bells
to the latter ;°° and the first phase in the history
of the minster comes to an end with the death
of Ealdred, the last native Archbishop of York,
who had established a common refectory for the
use of the canons, and had created a number of
prebends in the church out of certain estates
which he had procured for his see with his
private wealth.*®

51 The charter recognizes exceptions to the arch-
bishop’s ownership in Normanton, Upton, and
Fiskerton.

5? We may compare the action of Remigius of
Lincoln, himself a monk, who founded an establish-
ment of secular canons in connexion with his new
cathedral in the latter city.

53 This statement does not imply that no earlier
church existed in Southwell. It is quite possible that
a minster upon the royal demesne there already in
956 contained the relics of St. Eadburh. In this
case, the foundation of the college of canons would
be paralleled by the action of Ethelred II sixty years
later in establishing a similar body in connexion with
the minster at Oxford, ‘where the body of the blessed
Frideswide reposes.’

5 Hist, of the Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 343.

5 Thid. 344.

5° Ibid. 353. The Chronicle from which these
pieces of information are derived was formerly ascribed
to the hand of Thomas Stubbs (c. 1350), and has

2 153

There is good evidence, then, that the pre-
bendal system had been established at Southwell
before Ealdred’s death in 1069. By this system
each canon fulfilled a double function—that of a
parish priest in the church which gave title to
his prebend, combined with participation in the
duties of the collegiate body of which he was a
member. In course of time, as will appear
hereafter, the average prebendary discharged his
parochial office by means of a resident vicar ;
and was represented in the choir of Southwell
by a vicar choral—the practice of non-residence
played havoc with the theory on which a college
of secular canons was founded.” By the middle
of the 13th century at the latest non-residence
was recognized as the normal condition of
affairs ; and the two last prebends of Eaton and
North Leverton were provided, at the time of
their creation, with a special endowment for
vicars parochial and choral.

The full number of prebends attached to the
church was sixteen, a number completed in
1291 by the separation of North Leverton from
Beckingham. We possess information in some
detail about the foundation of seven of these
prebends ; the date at which the remainder were
created is a matter of inference. The evidence
bearing upon the latter may here be given in a
concise form.

1. The Sacrists’ prebend. No endowment in
land, but probably early, as connected with the
maintenance of the services of the church.

2. Normanton. Undoubtedly early ; the pre-
bendary of Normanton was patron of the
vicarage of Southwell, and the statement in
Domesday Book that 2 bovates in the manor
of Southwell were im prebenda almost certainly
refers to the Normanton prebend.

3) 4, 5, Norwell I, I, UI. The church
of Southwell had possessed a manor of Norwell
before the Conquest. Norwell I was the most
valuable of the sixteen prebends; Norwell II
was also valuable; Norwell III much less so.
This looks as if the latter was a later creation
than the two former, but as there is no record
of its foundation it had probably come into being
before the archiepiscopate of Thurstan, from
whose time we have complete information on
the subject. It seems probable that in the Nor-
well series we have two, possibly three, of Eal-
dred’s prebends.,

6. Woodborough. "The prebendary of Wood-
borough may safely be recognized in the ‘clerk’

been incorrectly cited as the work of Hugh the
Chantor of York (c. 1135); but it was shown by
Raine (Hist. ii, Pref. p. xx) that the first part of the
Chronicle in question belongs to an anonymous author
of the early part of the 12th century.

7 So late as the time of Thurstan an attempt was
made to keep up the common refectory ; Hist. of the
Church of York, iii, 47.

8 V.C.H. Notts. i, 219.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

who is entered in Domesday Book as holding
1 bovate in the latter vill under the archbishop.
In addition to this bovate, the archbishop pos-
sessed 7 other bovates in Woodborough, making
a total estate of 1 carucate. As the clerk’s
holding is only spoken of in the present tense,
it was probably detached from the carucate in
question subsequently to 1066, and the founda-
tion of Woodborough prebend may therefore be
assigned either to the last years of Ealdred or to
Archbishop Thomas I, more probably to the
latter.

7. North Muskham. The archbishop’s hold-
ing of 14 carucates is entered in Domesday
Book as a note to the description of Southwell.
It is uncertain whether any prebend had been
created out of this estate by 1086, but it is not
improbable.

8, 9. Oxton I, II. The creation of these
prebends presents great difhculty. They in-
cluded an endowment in the distant vill of Crop-
well Bishop which ‘St. Mary of Southwell’ had
held in 1066. The archbishop’s land in Oxton
itself had been acquired during the Conqueror’s
reign, and had not apparently by 1086 been
appropriated to the church of Southwell. It is
therefore possible that the Oxton prebends date
between 1086 and Thurstan’s time, though in
their later form they may represent the addition
of land in QOxton to an earlier prebend or pre-
bends in Cropwell Bishop. ‘This, on the whole,
seems the more probable explanation.

10. South Muskham. Probably to be assigned
to Archbishop Thomas II (1108-14).

11. Dunham. The church of this royal
manor was given by Henry I to Archbishop
Thurstan for the foundation of a prebend. The
exact date is uncertain.

12. Beckingham. Created by Thurstan.
Beckingham was one of the ‘ berewicks’ of the
archbishop’s great manor of Lanecham.

13. Halloughton. With the exception of
Normanton (q.v.) the only prebend created with-
in the limits of the manor of Southwell. The
foundation of Archbishop Roger de Pont
l'Evéque, confirmed by Pope Alexander III.

14. Rampton. The solitary lay foundation
among the prebends of Southwell. Bestowed
upon the church by Pavia de Malluvel and
Robert her son about 1200.

15. £aton. Founded by Archbishop Ro-
mayne 1290.

16. North Leverton, Separated from Beck-
ingham by the latter archbishop 1291.

These remarks are somewhat inconclusive,
but it would be futile to try to define more
closely the order in which the earliest prebends
of Southwell came into being. ‘The evidence
which we possess hardly lends support to the
idea, founded on the analogy of other churches
of the same description, that the original founda-
tion at Southwell consisted of seven preben-

daries ; © it rather suggests the gradual extension
of some much smaller nucleus. In any case,
however, the notable increase in the number of
prebends, and the lengthof time over which that
increase continued, are very remarkable facts.
In the period which lies beyond 1200 but few
of the canons are known to us by name, but it
deserves notice that Master Vacarius, the great
teacher of the civil law, held for a time one of
the prebends of Norwell.

One more unsolved problem in the early
history of Southwell may here be mentioned—
the fate which befell the remains of St. Ead-
burh. We know that the Norman prelates who
followed the Conquest possessed but scant respect
for the native saints of the land, but it is not
easy to account for the disappearance of a shrine
which clearly was an object of frequent pilgrim-
age in the early 11th century. It has to some
extent escaped notice that a discovery of wonder-
working relics was made at Southwell in the
reign of Stephen; these, however, cannot be
connected with St. Eadburh’s remains. While
a grave was being prepared, there were found
the relics of certain saints, and a glass vessel
filled with clear water, which restored health to
those who tasted it. “The matter was brought
to the notice of Thurstan, the then Archbishop
of York, but nothing further is recorded in con-
nexion with the discovery.

The Taxation Roll of 1291 enters all the
sixteen prebends, though it is a little difficult to
distinguish them with precision, as some are
given under the name of the prebend and others
under the name of the prebendary then holding
the preferment. ‘The estimate of the annual
value of these prebends (including £4 135. 4d.
for the vicar of Dunham prebend ; the church of
Rolleston—which was assigned to the common
fund— £13 6s. 8d. ; and the church of Kirkling-
ton, £5) amounted to the large total of
£342 135. 4d. The prebends varied very
greatly in value ; thus Dunham and another one
held by Master John Clavell (one of the Nor-
wells) were each worth £36 a year, but the
recent foundation of North Leverton was worth
£13 65. 8d. and that of Eaton only £6 135. 4d.”

When the Valor of 1534 was drawn up,
separate returns were made for each of the six-
teen prebends. The prebend of Dunham had
then fallen in value, being worth £28, but
Eaton was worth £9 6s. 8d. Each prebendary
at that time paid £4 a year to his vicar choral,
and 2s. 24d. to the chapter for visitation fees.

*° This was the number at Lichfield, York, Bever-
ley, and probably Ripon. But with regard to South-
well we cannot well throw either Woodborough or
North Muskham beyond the Conquest, and Norwell III
is almost certainly no original prebend.

° Chron. of Fohn of Wore. (ed. Weaver), 44.

® Poe Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 312.

154

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Each of the sixteen vicars was in receipt of
£7 45. 84d. (including the £4 from his preben-
dary), their common revenues being equally
divided. There were also thirteen chantry priests
attached to the minster, whose respective in-
comes varied from £8 75. 5d. to £4 165. 5d.
A fabric fund brought in a clear annual income
of £10 125. 64d.

‘There was also a common fund of the min-
ster. To this the appropriated Nottinghamshire
churches of Upton,’ Rolleston, Edingley, Kirk-
lington, Barnby, and the third part of Kelham
contributed £36 16s. 8d., and the church of
Barnborough, Yorkshire, £16 135. 4d. Among
other receipts were £8 in offerings during
‘Whitsandaye weike’; two stone of wax from
Thurgarton Priory; three stone of wax from
Shelford Priory ; and 26s. 8d. from the parish
church of South Wheatley to buy wax and oil.
The outgoings from this fund included £6 gs. 44d.
to six poor choristers ; 635. 4d. to two ‘ thuribu-
laries’?; £4 to two deacons, and 66s. 8d. to
two sub-deacons ; to the master of the choristers,
205. ; to the verge bearers, 35. 4d.; and for bring-
ing hallowed oil and cream, 12d.

When the college and chantry commissioners
of 1545 visited Southwell Minster, they de-
scribed it as ‘reputed and taken for the hed
mother Churche of the Towne and Countie of
Nottingham, wherin is sedes archiepalis founded
by the Righte famous of memorye Edgare the
Kinges majesties moste noble progenitor,’ for
three canons residentiary, a parish vicar, sixteen
vicars choral, thirteen chantry priests, four
deacons and sub-deacons, six choristers, two
‘’Thuribales,’ and two clerks. The sixteen
prebends and the thirteen chantry priests are all
specified ; the latter had each a chamber and
share in a common hall.®

On 12 August 1540 the Archbishop of York
granted to the king the patronage of all pro-
motion in the collegiate church of Southwell.®
On the same day the vicars choral surrendered
their chief house or mansion in Southwell with
all their possessions, and like surrenders were also
executed by the prebendaries and by the chantry
priests.” But these definite surrenders, through
some unknown influence, were suffered to pass
as so many dead letters, and in January 1543
their effect was formally annulled by a special
Act of Parliament, whereby ‘the colledge and
church collegiate of Southwell’ was legally re-
established in every particular ; the whole of its

8 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 192-8.

6 The commissioners wisely added to this state-
ment as to the founding of Southwell by King Edgar,
which seems to have been then current, that it was
‘without any foundation in writinge showed to the
Commyssioners.’

6° Coll. and Chant. Cert. Notts. xiii, 4o.

6 TL. and P. Hen. VIII, xv, 971.

&7 Thid. xvi, 275.

property and officials were restored, including
lamps, obits, chantries, and chantry priests.

Almost the whole of the upwards of two
hundred collegiate foundations extant throughout
England in pre-Reformation days, both great
and small, were ruthlessly confiscated by either
Henry VIII or Edward VI; even the fabrics
were in many cases destroyed and merchandise
made not only of the lead and bells but of the
very monuments, brasses, and gravestones. In
some cases, like Beverley and Ripon, Southwell’s
sister minsters, the churches were bought back
by the inhabitants and turned into parish churches.
In only five, or at the most six instances, were
fabrics and endowments eventually spared —W ind-
sor and Manchester being amongst them—but
of these by far the most ancient and famous, as
well as one of the largest, richest, and most
beautiful, was the collegiate church of the
Blessed Virgin of Southwell.

It seems that at this time it was the intention
of the king to make Southwell the seat of a
bishopric. The revenue was set down as £1,003,
of which one-third was to be allotted to the
bishop, who was designated in the person of one
of the prebendaries, Dr. Richard Cox, who after-
wards became Bishop of Ely.® But this idea,
like the great majority of paper schemes of
Henry VIII, came to naught.

The commissioners of Edward VI, in 1547-8,,
went over much the same ground. They were,
however, sufficiently uncritical deliberately to
repeat the legend as to the founding by King
Edgar in definite form as to each of the sixteen
prebendaries and the sixteen vicars. ‘The
Thuribularies’ serving at the altar are again
entered as in receipt of 135. 4d., and the ‘dila-
tion of Oyle and Creme from York’ costing 12d.
Of the chantry priests one is entered as a
preacher, two as ‘meatly lerned,’ and four as.
‘unlerned.? Three chapels of ease are men-
tioned as served from the minster, namely those
of Halam, Halloughton, and Morton. There is a
curious entry to the effect that, when the com-
missioners of Henry VIII visited Southwell on
24 November 1545, the prebendaries and heads
of the college sold a ‘Holy water Stocke of
Sylver,’ weighing 51 oz., and with the money
provided due entertainment for the visitors.

They found that the church had already been
stripped of 626 oz. of plate. They left to
the minster two silver-gilt chalices with their
patens, weighing 45 0z., for use at the Holy
Communion, and also £20 6s. 2d. worth of
vestments, copes, &c.

The visitation of the commissioners of Edward VI
not only swept away all the chantries of South-
well, but the college itself, the church being con-
tinued as the parish church, on the petition of

Ibid. xviii (1), 65 (45).
® Strype, Mem. i, pt. ii, 407.
6a Chant. and Coll. Cert. xxxvii, 4.

155

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

the parishioners. John Adams, the sacrist’s pre-
bendary, was appointed parish vicar with a salary
of £20, and two others made ‘assistants to the
cure’ at {5 each. By an Act, however, of
Philip and Mary (1557) the chapter was re-
stored. Most of the confiscated property had
passed to John Beaumont, Master of the Rolls,
but he had fallen into disgrace and his estates
had been resumed by the Crown in payment of
his debts.

After this restoration until the final dissolu-
tion of the chapter in 1841 the constitution of
the collegiate church was governed by a set of
statutes promulgated by Queen Elizabeth on
2 April 1585,’ interpreted by injunctions issued
by successive Archbishops of York as visitors of
the church and by resolutions of the chapter
themselves. No definite scheme of residence is
propounded in these statutes, which leave the
performance of this duty to the will of the several
prebendaries.1 Provision was made for the per-
formance of the sacred offices by insistence on
the continued presence of at least six vicars
choral, presbyteri et musict, assisted by six choir-
men and an equal number of choristers.””7 A
new officer, elected by the canons from among
their number and known as the vicar-general,
was created at the same time to exercise the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction belonging to the chap-
ter.”> For the edification of the officers of the
church weekly or fortnightly lectures in theolozy
were instituted ; and in the afternoon of each
Sunday the rudiments of the Faith were to be
expounded by one of the canons to an audience
including, beside the vicars choral and choristers,
the boys of the grammar school with their
master.’ Advantage was taken of the existing
opportunity to provide for a suitable distribution
of the lesser ofices connected with the church ;
and the chapter were directed to institute a
fitting person to see to the maintenance of the
fabric.’> “The whole set of statutes is evidence
of a thorough reorganization, the nature of which
reflects much credit upon the queen’s advisers,
among whom we may certainly reckon in the
present case Edwin Sandys, the reigning Arch-
bishop of York.

The main feature of the constitutional history
of the church in the succeeding period lies in
various attempts made by the canons to arrange
a permanent system of keeping residence. In
1693, by a resolution of chapter, which received
the sanction of Archbishop Sharpe, it was decreed
that for the future each prebendary, in the order
of his seniority, should keep a term of residence
for three months, an arrangement which in
theory prevailed until the dissolution of the

* Printed by Dickenson, Hist. of Southwell (ed. 1),
152-69.

| Tbid. cap. 3. 7 Tbid. cap. 2.
*§ Ibid. cap. 23. ™ Tbid. cap. 12.
Ibid. cap. 13.

chapter.’® It followed trom this that the canon
in residence for the time being became in effect
the temporary head of the whole collegiate body;
he presided over the sessions of the chapter, and
was responsible for the conduct of the services of
the church. It could scarcely have been ex-
pected, however, that those canons who held
high ecclesiastical office elsewhere should consent
to go into retirement at Southwell for three
months in every four years, and in practice the
office of residentiary is found circulating among
a small number of prebendaries, mostly con-
nected with the neighbourhood by birth or
family. At last, in 1841, provision was made
by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for the
gradual abolition of the chapter as a whole; the
decease of each successive canon after this time
involved the extinction of his prebend, and on
12 February 1873 the ancient corporation came
to its appointed end upon the death of the Rev.
Thomas Henry Shepherd, rector of Clayworth
and prebendary of Beckingham,

The history of the chapter of Southwell in
the 18th century raises no points of special
interest. It bore very much the character of a
select clerical association of which the members
were nominated by an external authority, the
Archbishop of York, but which enjoyed virtual
autonomy in the management of its internal
concerns. ‘The latter were regulated by a quar-
terly meeting of the chapter, which was rarely
attended by more than five or six out of the
sixteen canons, while three was a number com-
petent for the transaction of business. The
deliberations of this body were usually conducted
with unanimity, but a grave difference of opinion
is clearly reflected in the following entries taken
from the minutes of chapter :—”

October 19th, 1780.
Decreed

That for the future, on the Installation of any
Prebendary the expensive Dinner of late years given
on that occasion shall be laid aside, and every suc-
ceeding Prebendary in stead thereof shall pay into
the hands of the Treasurer {10 ; of which sum at
least £2, according to old custom, shall be applied to
improve the Library, and the rest disposd of accord-
ing to the discretion and determination of the Chap-
ter.

July roth, 1781.
Ata chapter held the 19th day of October 1780
it was Decreed that on the Installation of any pre-
bendary in future the expensive Dinner of late years
given on that occasion shoud be laid aside, w’ch
Decree appears to this Chapter to be inconvenient,

therefore it is now Decreed that the same be post-
poned.

It is rather a suggestive circumstance that a
new canon was to be installed the next day.

7 MS. incomplete. In the possession of Mr. F. M.
Stenton.

156

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

Three years later the dispute in question was
settled by the intervention of the Archbishop of
York as visitor of the college, who enjoined :—

That hereafter no publick dinner or entertain-
ment shall be made at the installation of any Preben-
dary, but, instead thereof, the sum of six pounds shall
be paid by the person installed, in addition to the two
pounds heretofore given for the benefit of the library.”

A resolution of chapter, made 24 October
1783, ‘that the chanting of the service in the
church be performed in a monotony,’ is of some
interest from its date, but it must be admitted
that the 18th-century canons of Southwell can
hardly be claimed as exempt from the lethargy
which characterized the Church of England as a
whole during this period. Here and there among
the resident canons may be recognized a divine
of superior scholarship and wider intellectual
interests, such as Dr. Ralph Heathcote, vicar
general from 1788 to 1795, who in his youth
had taken an active part in the theological con-
troversies of the middle of the century.’”? Earlier
than this the same office had been held by
George Mompesson, the heroic vicar of Eyam,
Derbyshire, in the days of the great plague of
1666; and William Rastall, Heathcote’s imme-
diate predecessor, showed commendable diligence
in his care for the fabric of the magnificent
church of which he and his colleagues were the
custodians. But these men were exceptions, and
for such a body as the chapter of Southwell in
its latest days there was but one possible fate in
the decades of radical reform which followed
1832. Eleven years after the death of the last
surviving prebendary the church of Southwell
became once more a centre in the ecclesiastical
organization of the county by its elevation to be
the cathedral of the see newly created in 1884
for the counties of Nottingham and Derby.”

The constitution of this great Nottinghamshire
church was based on that of the cathedral church
of York. In the bull of Alexander III, granted
in 1171, confirming the canons in all their
possessions, it is expressly stated that the ancient
customs and liberties ‘ which the church of York
is known to have had from old time and still to
have ’ were renewed and solemnly maintained to
them.®! In this bull sanction was given to the
ancient custom, already well established, of both
clergy and laity making Whitsuntide procession
to Southwell as the old mother church of the
county, and thence they were to obtain the holy
oils for distribution among their churches, brought
thither from York. The clergy, too, were ex-
pected to attend an annual synod at Southwell.

% Dickenson, Hist. of Southwell, 278.

7 An interesting autobiography of Dr. Heathcote
was included by Dickenson in the second edition of
his Hist. of Southwell.

8 For some information upon points of detail in-
cluded here we are indebted to Mr. W. G. Patchett
of Southwell. 8! Liber Albus, fol. 1.

The special privileges that the Southwell
canons enjoyed in common with those of York
were freedom in their common lands and also in
their respective prebends from all ordinary juris-
diction, spiritual or temporal, of archbishop or
king. No distress, &c., could be taken by the
sheriff without the chapter’s leave, or without
the individual prebend’s leave in the case of
prebendal lands. ‘The canons had civil and
criminal jurisdiction over all their tenants and
people in their liberty. The judges on circuit
had to hold the pleas of the Crown at the south
door of the church ; in criminal cases in one of
the canon’s houses, outside the minster yard.
They had to make a return of their proceedings
to the canons, and the fines and forfeitures in-
flicted went to the canons and not to the king.’
The canons also held the assize of bread and beer
throughout their liberty, and could fine the in-
fringers of this and other market regulations ;
but they did not possess either pillory or tumbrel.
They and their tenants were also free from eve y
form of toll and custom throughout Englanu.
These extensive powers and privileges were
granted by charters of the first three Henrys, and
were fully maintained by them under the Quo
Warranto proceedings of the beginning of the
reign of Edward I.

In spiritual matters the collegiate church of
Southwell was exempt from all archiepiscopal
jurisdiction, save that the diocesan had the power
to visit to see that they kept their statutes; but
this power was seldom if ever put in force after
the 13th century. "The chapter alone exercised
jurisdiction over the vicars choral and chantry
priests, and over their prebendal or parochial
vicars (whom they instituted), and also over the
laity throughout their peculiar.®

In one important point the canons of South-
well differed from those of York. Unlike any
other foundation of secular canons save that of
Ripon, they possessed no head warden or dean.
Even Ripon gave a recognized supremacy, though
no special title, to one of their number, the pre-
bendary of Stanwick ; but at Southwell all were
of equal rights throughout their history. In
actual practice it is probable that the senior canon
in residence would preside at chapter meetings,
and in other ways take precedence.®

8? Leach, Mem. xxxi.

% Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 615, 636.

% Mr. Leach, however, goes much too far when he
says (xxxiii) that ‘they possessed all archiepiscopal
functions except ordination,’ for of course they
could not confirm, nor consecrate altars or churches,
&e.

® One Hugh, Dean of Southwell, occurs as a wit-
ness to certain deeds, c. 1225. Mr. Leach thinks
that possibly the chapter tried the irregular experiment
of having a dean fora few years about this date. But
we have no doubt that Hugh was but a rural dean ;
we have found other later instances of such Deans of
Southwell.

157

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

There is no regular body of statutes of an
early date defining the duties of the various
members of the chapter ; but Mr. Leach is able
to show by numerous references that the neces-
sary functions of precentor, of sacrist or treasurer,
and of chancellor were duly discharged by par-
ticular prebendaries.%® From quite early times
Southwell suffered from the invariable abuse of
all establishments of secular canons, the non-
residence of its highly-paid members. Owing
to the illicit sanction of pluralities and non-
residence, it came about that each canon had two
deputies, the one to act as parish vicar in his
prebendal or village church, and the other to
take his singing place in quire as vicar choral.
The non-residence of many of the Southwell
prebendaries must have been well established at
a fairly early date, for the bull of Alexander III
(1170) definitely assigns to the canons the right
to institute fit vicars, whom they please, in their
prebendal churches without anyone’s interfer-
ence.

The oldest ordinances of this church are those
of Archbishop Gray, dated 20 April 1225.%7
These ordinances (sealed by the Southwell chap-
ter as well as by the archbishop) clearly endeay-
oured to secure better residence by a system of
rewards for attendance. By these ordinances, it
was provided that every canon attending mattins
on ordinary feasts was to receive 3d. from the
common fund, and 6d. on double feasts. The
old common fund had been increased in 1221
by the appropriation to it of the rectory of
Rolleston Church, and the surplus of the whole
fund was to be divided equally among the
resident canons at Whitsuntide. To be a
resident canon and entitled to this portion the
canon had to reside three months at one time, or
in two halves, but the study of theology else-
where might count as residence.

When this statute or ordinance of 1225 was
reconsidered by a convocation of the canons in
1260, it was decided, with the assent of Arch-
bishop Giffard, that the study of theology was
only to count as residence if the student followed
the regular course at Paris and Oxford or Cam-
bridge at least for two terms of the year. Mr,
Leach concludes, with much probability, that
this explanatory ordinance was aimed at Italian
canons thrust upon the chapter by papal pro-
vision.8° At the same time it was decided that
the absence of a canon at his prebend for the
purpose of preaching, hearing confessions, or the
fulfilment of like duties in his prebendal church,
provided he did not sleep more than three
nights out of Southwell, and had asked leave of

* They were confirmed by Archbishop Giffard in
1260, and have several times been wrongly cited as of
this latter date. York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 3.

* Liber Albus, fol. 45.

Mem. xlvi.

the other canons resident, was not to count as
absence.

Non-residence was, however, so fully re-
cognized as the usual custom, that Archbishop
Romayne, when founding two new prebends in
1291, made provision at the same time for the
due appointment of prebendal and choral vicars
in each case.” At a visitation in 1293 the same
archbishop ordained that each canon was to have
a duly authorized proxy, that vicarages were to
be established in all the prebendal churches, and
that the prebendaries were to pay their vicars
choral 60s. a year. Thomas de Corbridge, the
next archbishop, after visitation, provided in 1302
that at all times three or at least two canons
were to be resident in the church, to hold chap-
ter, and personally in consultation direct and
handle business.*! Henceforth this minimum of
canons residentiary was treated as if it was the
maximum.

At a later period even this minimum was set
aside from time to time. Mr. Leach cites an
instance in 1361 of a single canon residentiary
‘making and holding a chapter,’ whilst in the
15th and 16th centuries a single residentiary
constantly sat as a tribunal, described in the
official entries as ‘ making a chapter.’ ”

The later mediaeval Archbishops of York, in-
stead of trying like their predecessors to do some-
what to stay the plague of the Church’s tithes
being squandered on sinecure pluralists, vied
with popes * and kings in its extravagant promo-
tion.

An exceptional reason was given by Henry IV
in 1405 for permitting papal provisions for one
Brian de Willoughby, a Nottinghamshire clerk.

® Liber Albus, fol. 24.

Ibid. fol 51, 52.

@ Mem. x\viii.

* The following are three papal examples of this
pernicious practice. Dispensation was granted in
1259 by Alexander IV to John Clarcl, canon of
Southwell, to hold one additional benefice, although
in addition to his prebend of Norwell in Southwell
Church he already held the rectories of Overton,
Hemingford, Bridgeford, Houghton, Elton, and
‘Babworth’ (Ca/. of Papal Letters, i, 363). In July
1308 William Melthon, rector of Hornsea, Yorkshire,
was dispensed by Pope Clement V to hold a canonry
and prebend of Southwell, although he already held
canonries and prebends of Dublin, Bangor, and Wor-
cester, and two more rectories in the dioceses of
York and Lincoln. Two years later the same canon
of Southwell was further holding prebends in Lincoln
and York, the provostship of St. John’s, Beverley, and
the deanery of St. Martin’s le Grand, London (Ca/.
cf Papal Letters, ii, 42, 72). Master Robert de
Beverley, doctor of canon and civil law, obtained
papal dispensation in 1352 to hold a prebend of
Southwell, notwithstanding that he was then canon
of Beverley, sub-treasurer of York, rector of North
Burton, and expecting a benefice in the gift of the
Provost of St. John’s, Beverley ; Cal. of Papal Letters,
iii, 425.

158

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

It appeared that substance of his maintenance,
amounting to 200 marks yearly, had been so
wasted by the rebel Welsh that he had but £7
a year to keep up his estate. The king there-
fore granted that he might obtain from the pope
a provision and collation to a dignity and a pre-
bend in the cathedral church of York and also
like appointments in the three collegiate churches
of Beverley, Southwell, and Ripon, all of the
advowson of the Archbishop of York.*!

All the canonries of Southwell, as well as of
York, Beverley, and Ripon, were in the gift of
the archbishops, and it was by no means infre-
quent for these prelates to bestow three or even
more of such prebends on their favourites.
Archbishop Nevill in 1474 collated and per-
sonally inducted Edmund Chaterton into the
Southwell prebend of South Muskham ; Chaterton
also held prebends of Beverley, Ripon, Lincoln,
St. Paul’s, St. Stephen’s Westminster, and

: Salisbury, and was also warden of Sibthorpe
College, rector of Calverton, Dean of Barking, and
Archdeacon of Chester, Salisbury, and Totnes.

Henry Carnbull, collated by Archbishop
Rotherham in 1499 to the Southwell prebend of
Norwell Overhall, was also canon of York,
Beverley, and Lincoln, and fellow of the arch-
bishop’s own foundation at Rotherham.

William Clarburgh, collated by Archbishop
Wolsey in 1527 to the Southwell prebend of
Rampton, already held four other canonries, three
of them in this diocese, namely those of York,
Lincoln, Howden, and Hemingbrough.

The work of this great collegiate establishment
had, however, to be in some sort fulfilled, both in
temporalities and spiritualities. As to the former
a somewhat unusual system of churchwardens,
beginning about the middle of the 13th century,
was gradually developed. They are spoken of in
1295 as ‘wardens of the communia of the canons
and of the fabric ofthe church.’ In 1302 it was
provided that no one bound to choir service was
to absent himself without leave from a canon
residentiary, or from the wardens of the chapter
if no canon was present. There is a provision
in an ordinance of 1329 that these two wardens
were to be elected annually at the audit next
after the feast of Trinity. The references to
these wardens of the commons are constant at
a later period.™

As to spiritualities, the Chantry Commissioners
stated that this collegiate church was ‘atte the
firste cheffely founded for maintenaunce of Gods
worde and mynstringe of the most blessed sacra-
mentes and for to have all dyvine service there
dayleye songe and sayde.’ It remained therefore
for the vicars choral to discharge these duties of
perpetual divine service, beginning in the early
hours of the morning, for which the canons were
originally appointed.

* Pat. 6 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 31.
% Mem. liii-lv.

The statutes, or ‘Acts of Convocation of all
the brethren and canons of Southwell,’ drawn up
in 1248, laid down many injunctions as to the
vicars, ‘Chey were not to quarrel; to havea
warden of their commons, elected by themselves,
who was to divide legacies and payments for
masses or obits among them ; incontinence was to
be canonically punished ; bad language or insults
in the church to be punished by two disciplines
(floggings) in chapter, or fine of 2s. ; like offences
outside the church, one flogging or 1s. or wearing
in the Sunday procession the old du/gewarium round
the neck ; fora third offence, expulsion ; to attend
all the hours, especially mattins, with 1s. fine for
absence ; readers in quire to read over lessons
beforehand, ridiculous reading to be punished by
discipline in chapter ; tavern and play haunters to
be suspended ; and fines for missing hours to be
handed to the commons warden for division
among the other vicars.

In 1379 a part of the eastern side of the
churchyard was assigned as the site of the vicars’
hall and common mansion, the site of the present
vicars’ court, in succession to a predecessor at some
little distance, which was much out of repair.
Canon Richard de Chesterfield, who built this
house, was also a benefactor to the vicars in 1392
by a grant of property.”

In March 1439 Henry VI granted to South-
well chapter the alien priory of Ravendale,
Lincolnshire, of the clear yearly value of £14,
with all its advowsons and profits. “The reason
alleged for this grant was that the Archbishop of
York had shown to the king that the revenues
of the collegiate church had decreased; so
that of the canons, vicars, chaplains, chanters,
deacons, sub-deacons, choristers and other minis-
ters there to the number of 60 persons, only
a few of the chaplains could live on the portions
assigned them, and that the residue to the number
of about forty persons of the lower grades of the
ministry were about to leave the church for lack
of sustenance.

The chantry priests of this church formed
another important body, whose special function
here as elsewhere was to pray for the souls of
their founder or founders and their relations and
benefactors. Several, however, of their number
also served chantries and acted as assistant chap-
lains to the prebendal churches and their chapels
of ease round Southwell. One of their number
was also usher of the grammar school. Eight of
these chantries were founded in the collegiate
church of Southwell in the 13th century; the
number was eventually increased to thirteen. By
the statutes of 1248 they were brought under
the same discipline as the vicars choral. When
Canon Thomas Haxey founded a chantry in

% These statutes are set forth at length in Mem.
205-9.

7 Liber Albus, 443.

Pat. 17 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 2.

159

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

1415 he gave certain small endowments of com-
mon lands, the revenues from which were to be
divided among the ten chantry priests then
existing.” He also built for them a common
chantry house on ground taken out of the north-
west corner of the minster yard. Here they
dwelt together incommon. ‘This chantry house
stood intact till 1784. Mr. Leach mentions
what he rightly terms ‘a quite pathetic provision ”
in a lease of 1574 of the west part of this house
to a layman; he was to allow ‘Sir Francis Hall
and Sir Richard Harryson, sometime chauntrie
priests,’ to enjoy their two several chambers there-
in for their lives. Hall was then sixty-nine and
Harrison seventy-seven years of age.’

The following are brief particulars as to the
dates and founding of the thirteen chantries :—

Three chantries in the chapel of St. Thomas
the Martyr, founded c. 1240 by Robert de
Lexinton, canon of Southwell, one of the king’s
justices.

St. Peter’s chantry, at the altar of St. Peter,
founded by Richard Sutton, canon of Southwell,
1274.

St. Nicholas chantry, at the altar of St. Nicholas,
founded by Sir William Widington, steward of
the archbishop and bailiff of Southwell, c. 1250.

St. Stephen's chantry, at the altar of St.
Nicholas, founded by Andrew, bailiff of Southwell,
c. 1250.

St. John Baptist’s chantry, founded by Henry
Vavasour, canon of Southwell, c. 1280.

St. John the Evangelist’s chantry, at the altar
of the same name, founded by Henry de Notting-
ham, canon of Southwell, c. 1240.

St. Mary’s chantry, at the altar of St. Michael,
impoverished at the time of the Black Death, aug-
mented by William Gunthorpe, canon of South-
well, 1395.

The Morrow Mass chantry for very early
celebrations,"' founded in 1415 by ‘Thomas
Haxey, canon of Southwell.

The double chantry of Our Lady and St.
Cuthbert, for two priests, in the chapel of St.
John Baptist, founded by Archbishop Laurence
Booth, 1479.

The chantry of St. Mary Magdalen, at the
altar of the same name, founded by Robert Ox-
ton, canon of Southwell, who died in 1408.

There is a second valuable register book
preserved at Southwell. It is a register of the
Acts of Chapter from 9 November 1469 to 23
July 1542. It contains records of chapter courts
in slander, tithe, and perjury cases of the usual
ecclesiastical court description, visitations and cor-
rections by the chapter of vicars choral and
prebendal and of chantry priests, wills within the
peculiar, admission and resignation of canons,

*® Liber Albus, fol. 65. 10 Mem. Ixiii.
1 The Morrow Mass at Newark was celebrated at
4 a.m. all the year round.

vicars choral, and other officers of the church,
presentations to livings, &c. The contents of
this quarto volume, containing 355 pages of paper,
have for the most part been reproduced in extenso
by Mr. Leach, as well asanalysed after a vigorous
fashion, in his notable volume of 1891, so that
avery brief reference need only be made to it in
this sketch. ‘The triennial visitations held by the
chapter of the inferior ministers exposed many
delinquencies of various kinds, from sleeping at
mattins, laughing during service, spitting in quire,
gabbling the psalms, celebrating in dirty vestments,
and shirking the services, down to more serious
matters, such as disobedience to the chapter,
revealing chapter secrets, gaming, hunting,
hawking and cock-fighting, drinking, and incon-
tinency.

Wherever we are able to obtain detailed evidence
as to the conduct and administration of a large
house of secular canons, it is matter of common
knowledge to students that its discipline (as was
almost bound to be the case) was distinctly inferior
to the more rigid rules of the cloistered monas-
teries. It is of course quite easy for anyone
desirous of doing so to draw up a heavy and well-
merited indictment against the forty-five minor
ministers whose lives and actions are here so piti-
lessly unveiled so far as evil, small or grievous, is
concerned. But, contrariwise, it is by no means
dificult, and far more just, to regard these painful
revelations as a proof of the decent and comely
lives led by the majority. Visitations, by the'r
very nature, can only take account of breaches of
rule by a minority, and never record a syllable of
praise as to those who are obedient. ‘To judge
in broad general terms as to the life and morality
of such a community as this from the registered
offences, is as unjust as to estimate the life and
morality of any district in England of the present
day from the police and assize intelligence, or
the condition of a great public school from the
tale of canings and impositions.

Moreover, to any fair-minded man the occa-
sional notices of torn surplices, dirty habits, jesting
during service, lolling in the seats, carelessness in
singing, or missing book-clasps, are so many proofs
of a sincere desire after decency of worship, and
by no means any evidence of a general sloven-
liness. Such questions would have been ignored,
or lightly treated, had there been any widespread
irreverence in the worship of the unreformed
collegiate church of Southwell during the last
century of its existence. If the best of our
present-day cathedral establishments was put
through such rigorous and detailed visitations as
those to which Southwell was subjected, it would
not emerge immaculate.

The worst part of these visitation records is
the comparatively mild punishment enjoined in
bad cases of incontinency, such as a very short
period of suspension, Another punishment not
infrequently assigned carried, or ought to have

160

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

carried, much shame with it, namely the walking
in the Sunday procession with bare legs, feet, and
head, and carrying a wax taper. The contrast
between secular penances and the severity of
those usually inflicted in monasteries is strongly
marked.

It is unfortunate that there are no records of
visitations of the chapter or prebendaries. It
would appear from the Liber Albus that there
were at one time visitations made by archbishops,
as the statutes of both 1293 and 1303 state that
they were drawn up in consequence of visitations.
But from beginning to end of the voluminous
pre-Reformation episcopal registers of York
there is no entry of a visitation of Southwell.’
Such visitations may possibly have escaped entry,
but it is far more probable that none were held
later than 1303.

Other references to this great collegiate
foundation are of rare occurrence in the diocesan
registers, save in the matter of the collation to
prebends.

Archbishop Gray in November 1234 granted
an indulgence of thirty days of enjoined penance
to all penitents who should aid in the construc-
tion of the fabric of Southwell Minster, the
indulgence to hold good for three years. This
gives the date when the beautiful Early English
quire was in progress.

There are various references to Southwell in
Archbishop Giffard’s register (1266-79), though
mostly on minor points. In 1270 the archbishop
addressed a letter to the sequestrator, ordering
him to respite the fine for non-residence imposed
on Henry de Skipton, canon of Southwell,
About this same date Henry de Brondeston was
collated to the prebend in the church of South-
well which had been held by Richard de Sutton.
In making this appointment the archbishop
invested the new canon with his ring, and
demanded of the chapter that they should assign
him a stall in quire and a seat in the chapter-
house. But the particular feature of this colla-
tion was that he was made subject to the yearly
heavy payment of 50 marks out of the profits of
the prebend to Adinulf, the pope’s nephew,
during his life. This gross case of papal nepo-
tism was imposed on Archbishop Gray in 1241,
when collating Richard de Sutton to this pre-
bend.1°

The date of the exquisite chapter-house
is determined by an ordinance of Archbishop
Romayne of 1293, when he directed that the
houses of alien canons threatened with ruin were
to be duly repaired within a year, under pain
of a heavy fine for the fabric of the new chapter-
house.!°

102 The present writer can say this with confidence,
for he made a special search on Mr. Leach’s behalf in
1890. 1 York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 64-5.

14 York Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 29d.

105 Ibid. fol. 38, 38d. ™ Liber Albus, fol. 52.

Southwell was a favourite residence of many
of the archbishops, and several chose it as
the place for their interment. Archbishop
fElfric Puttoc died at Southwell in 1051; he
was buried at Peterborough.” Archbishop
Cynesige (1051-60) bestowed on the minster
bells of great size and tone. Archbishop
Gerard (1096-1108) died at Southwell, but was
buried at York. Archbishop Thomas II
(1109-14) wrote a letter soon after his appoint-
ment to all his parishioners of Nottinghamshire,
praying them, for the remission of their sins, to
help with their alms in building the church of
St. Mary of Southwell; promising to all who
gave the least assistance a share in all the
prayers and good works done therein and in all
his (minster) churches, releasing them at the
same time from their Whitsuntide visit to York
Minster, and substituting Southwell Minster in
its place. Archbishop Corbridge died at Lane-
ham in this county in 1304, and was interred in
the minster.4° Archbishop William Booth,
who appropriated the church of Kneesall to the
vicars choral, died and was buried at Southwell
in 1464.17 Archbishop Laurence Booth, who
founded a chantry of two priests, also died at
Southwell in 1480, and was there buried.”

There are two imperfect impressions of the
old 12th-century seal of the collegiate church of
Southwell. The one is attached to a grant to
Rufford Abbey, c. 1220;1° the other is attached
to the deed of surrender of 1540, at the Public
Record Office. It rudely portrays the Blessed
Virgin seated, with the Holy Child on her lap;
the legends runs :-—

SIGILLUM SANCTE MARIE..... WELLA.

An engraving of the latter of these impressions
appears as a frontispiece to Mr. Leach’s Visita-
tions and Memorials.

23. THE COLLEGE OF TUXFORD

John de Lungvillers in 1362 obtained the
royal licence to found in the rectory house and
church of Tuxford, of his patronage, a college
of five chaplains, one of whom was to be termed
the warden. ‘They were to hold the advowson
of the church, to pray for the founder’s good
estate during his life, and for his soul after death,
and for the soul of Thomas his father and for all
the faithful departed. For some reason or
another this scheme was not carried into effect,
and six years later John de Lungvillers gave the
advowson and appropriation of Tuxford to the
priory of Newstead, ordaining that they were to
maintain three chaplains to celebrate daily for a

1 Raine, Hist. of the Ch. of York, ti, 343.

"8 Thid. 344. 8 Ibid. 361.

"0 Ibid. iti, 412. 1 Thid. 436.

1 Thid. 438-9. "8 Harl. Chart. 83, D. 2.

2 161 21

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

like purpose at Tuxford and two more at New-
stead.'™4

The clear annual value of this small college
or chantry was declared to be in 1534
£9 2s. 1d. The three chantry priests of that
date were John Asheford, John Danson, and
John Segreaves.”*

When the commissioners of Henry VIII,
preparatory to confiscation, visited Nottingham-
shire in 1545, they declared the annual value to
be £9 25. 2d., but found that the number of
priests had been reduced to two; and that they
had already surrendered the property to the kinz,
each receiving a life pension of 605.'7°

HOSPITALS

24. THE HOSPITAL OF BAWTRY

The great parish of Blyth was one of those
few cases in which parochial boundaries extended
into two shires. The chapelries of Bawtry and
Austerfield were in the West Riding of York-
shire, but pertained to Blyth, and were given to
Blyth Priory in the reign of Henry I]. On this
account the hospital of Bawtry is for the most
part described as a Yorkshire foundation. But
this is certainly not the case ; it was on various
occasions in mediaeval days treated as pertaining
to the county of Nottingham, and as a matter of
fact the county incidence is not in any way a
debatable question, for the site of the old
hospital usually known as Bawtry was in reality
in the Nottinghamshire parish of Harworth, and
merely contiguous to the adjacent Yorkshire
township of Bawtry.

There is much uncertainty about this early
foundation dedicated to the honour of St. Mary
Magdalen; but when King John in 1200, in his
grant to the church of Rouen, included the
church of Harworth, with the chapels of Serlby
and Martin, it is highly probable that the chapel
of Martin, a township of Harworth, within which
stood the hospital, was the hospital chapel. At
any rate the hospital with its chapel was of
Norman foundation,”

The hospital was for the sustenance of certain
poor persons, and was under the rule of a master
or warden. If it was ever in the patronage of
the church of Rouen, as might be supposed to
follow from the Blyth connexion,’ that arrange-
ment came to an end at an early date, for the
Archbishops of York held the patronage at least
as early as the beginning of the reign of Edward I.
The earliest recorded entry of collation to this
mastership in the episcopal registers occurs in
1280.4 Thomas de Langtoft, priest, was col-
lated by Archbishop Romayne to the hospital
of Bawtry on 10 February 1289-90, and a
mandate was issued to the rural dean of Retford

™ Pat. 25 Edw. III, pt. iii, m. 17; 31 Edw. III,
pt. i, m. 25.

"8 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 180.

U6 Coll. and Chant. Cert. xiii, 18.

1 Chart. R. 2 John, m. 23.

? There are remains of Norman work still to be
traced in the hospital chapel.

to induct him ;* and on 27 September 1291 the
archbishop collated Roger le Porter of Beverley,
priest, to this foundation.®

There are two entries of collation of masters of
Bawtry Hospital in the register of Archbishop
Thoresby, both of them the result of exchanges.
In 1361 Elyas de Thoreston of this hospital
exchanged with John de Grandle, chaplain of
the chapel of the Blessed Virgin and the Holy
Angels, York. Again in 1363 an exchange was
effected between Henry Barton and Roger de
Nassington, prebendary of Brickhill and Lin-
coln.”

The foundation was extended in 1390 by
Robert Morton, a wealthy and charitable bene-
factor. Morton was escheator of the county of
Nottingham and a knight of the shire from
1361 to 1393. In 1390 he gave to the neigh-
bouring prior and convent of St. Oswald, i.e.
Nostell near Pontefract, the considerable sum of
£240, for which they stipulated to pay 8 marks
yearly for ever to the chaplain of the hospital of
St. Mary Magdalen, near Bawtry (vocata Le
Spittle), in augmentation of this stipend, to
secure his prayers for the good estate of Robert
the donor and Joan his wife during life, and for
their souls after death, and for the souls of their
parents, ancestors, and benefactors. To secure
the due payment by St. Oswald’s of the chaplain’s
stipend, there was a proviso that if the rent was
a term in arrear, it should be lawful for the
chaplain to enter upon the prior and convent’s
manors of Tickhill, Wilsill, Swinton, and Hol-
well, and distrain for arrears.®

An indenture was entered into between
Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of York, and
Adam, Prior of St. Oswald, as to the due fulfil-
ment of this undertaking.®

Robert Morton’s will, made at Bawtry in
1396, provided numerous ecclesiastical bequests.
Among them he left 40s. to the Bawtry Hos-
pital of St. Mary Magdalen; also to William
Myrfyne, then master of the hospital and one

° See above under Blyth Priory, p. 84.
“ Harl. MS. 6970, fal. 81. ips
* York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 75 d.
® Ibid. fol. 78.

” Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 50, 51.

* Pat. 14 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 3.

® Langtoft’s Chron. ii, 395-7.

162

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

of his executors, cattle and corn to the value of
£10. He also expressed a wish that his wife
should give to the hospital cooking utensils and
other necessaries tu the value of 40s.1°

Robert Morton junior, of Bawtry, was involved
in the revolt of the Percys and the Welsh at the
beginning of the reign of Henry IV, and all his
estates in the counties of Nottingham and York,
to the value of 40 marks yearly, were forfeited
to the Crown. In 1405 all his property was
granted by Henry IV to John Peryent, the king’s
esquire, together with the chapel and chantry of
St. Mary Magdalen by Bawtry.™

In October 1403 John Scot, ‘chivaler,’ obtained
licence for 20 marks to grant the manor of
Misson to William Myrfyne, warden or chap-
lain of the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen by
Bawtry, to find a chaplain to celebrate daily in
the hospital for the good estate of the said John
and for his soul after death, and for the souls of
his wives, sons, and ancestors, and also for the
souls of Robert Morton and Joan his wife.”
These letters patent were not, however, executed,
and were surrendered in February 1406, when
by payment of an additional 5 marks John Scott
was permitted to transfer the manor of Misson
to the Prior and Convent of Mattersey in aid of
their maintenance.

The Valor of 1534 names Richard Pygott as
master, and gives the clear annual value of the
hospital as £6 65. 8d., of which £5 6s. 8d. was
paid by the priory of St. Oswald, whilst
20s. was entered as the value of 12 acres of
land.1*

When Sir John Markham and other commis-
sioners visited this hospital in 1545 they reported
under the head of ‘ The parrishe of Harworthe’
that—‘ The Hospitall of Mary Magdalen juxta
Bawtrie (was) founded by one Robert Morton, for
a Priest, there to be resident and to keep Hospita-
litie for poore People, to pray for the Founder’s
Soule and all Christian Soules, as the Deputye
of the Incumbent saith uppon his Oathe, with-
out any Writings shewed to the Commissioners.’
The whole of the revenues (amounting to up-
wards of £14) at that time were in the hands
of Richard Pygott, described mistakenly by the
commissioner as ‘chapliene to Kinge Henry the
eight,’ except 135. 4d. which he gave to a priest
to say mass there two daysa week.” This man
Pygott was not in orders, but was ‘a gentleman
of the Chapel Royal’ and a favourite of the
king ; Henry VIII insisted on bestowing on him
prebends and other ecclesiastical appointments
‘notwithstanding his laity.’ 1°

10 Test. Ebor. i, 210.

" Pat. 6 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 1.

2 Pat. 5 Hen. IV, pt. i, m. 28.

13 Pat. 7 Hen. IV, pt. i, m. 15.

4 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 177.
8 Langtoft’s Chron. il, 399-400.
16D. and P. Hen. VIII, xx, passim.

Notwithstanding the definite chantry purpose
of the income to this hospital from the priory of
St. Oswald, the payment was continued on the
dissolution of that house, and it even escaped
confiscation as a ‘superstitious’ use in the days
of Edward. This ancient charge even now
continues to be paid by the Crown.

One James Brewster was collated by Arch-
bishop Sandys to the mastership or chaplaincy of
this hospital in 1584. Brewster entered into a
conspiracy with Thomas Robinson and two others
to subvert the hospital and its funds, and, upon
false information, to enable them to sell the
hospital and its grounds. In 1590 a warrant
was issued by the High Commissioners for Lands
Ecclesiastical at York to attach James Brewster
and others ‘for profayninge and ruinatinge the
House and Chappell of the Hospitall.’ The
opening sentence of the warrant runs :—‘ Where-
as We are crediblie enfourmed, that diverse
evill disposed Persons have of late entered the
Hospitall of Mary Magdalen at Bawtrie and
pluckt up and carried away certaine Stalls and
other Furniture belonginge to the same, contrary
to all order and without any Awthoritie.” The
various conspirators made confession of their
actions and of their endeavours to transfer the
archiepiscopal rights as patrons to the Crown,
and Archbishop John Piers, in conjunction with
John Cooper of Southwell, whom he collated
to the mastership, jointly made suit before the
barons of Exchequer to recover the title. Cooper
in his evidence stated that from time immemorial
this hospital had been founded for the relief of
certain poor people and for the support of a
master who was to be an ecclesiastical person ;
that divine service and common prayer ought
weekly to have been said ; that the patronage was
in the hands of the Archbishop of York, or of the
Crown during voidance of the see ; that within
two years last past one James Brewster of
Chelmsford, claiming to be master, set himself to
upset the state of the hospital, and to make
acquisition of its possessions to himself and his
heirs, disburdening himself of residence and
obligation to hold divine service; that latterly
he had profaned the chapel, carrying away all
ornaments, changing the same ‘from a Chappel
to be a Stable or a Roame for theire Horses and
Cattell, to the great offence of the inhabitants
neare thereabouts adjoyninge . . . and contrary
to all Law and Equitie and good Conscience,
seinge as the same Hospitall was never lawfully
dissolved ’ ; and that therefore Brewster had for
his long absence and ‘other lewd Demeanors’
been deprived of the hospital by the archbishop.
On the death of Archbishop Piers, in 1594, this
suit was continued by his successor Archbishop
Hutton in conjunction with John Cooper, and
in 1595 decree was given in their favour,
Cooper being empowered to recover the profits
of the last five years and apply them to the

163

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

rebuilding or repair of the hospital, chapel, and
other buildings.

John Cooper died in 1610, and John Slacke,
M.A., was collated to the mastership by Arch-
bishop Matthew. Slacke, however, was denied
entry into the premises by John Bradley and
others who had been tenants under Cooper and
had paid him £6 a year rent for the same. But
after considerable litigation the new master
obtained possession, and according to his own
statement ‘builded up the decayed Chappell,
repayred the Windowes with Stone, Iron and
Glasse, made new Seats and the Pulpitt and
bought the Bell now in the Chapell.’

When John Slacke set forth his account of
this hospital and chapel, with details of all the
post-Reformation litigation, written in 1635, he
stated that all the profits then coming to the
master both by pensions and rents were £14 105.,
and that two poor widows lived in the hospital,
each of whom received 205. a year.

At the end of his record or chartulary he
enters three names as his benefactors: Arch-
bishop Matthew (1606-28), Archbishop Harsnett
(1628-32), and ‘ Anthony Morton Esq. who was
buried in the Chappell.’

The last sentence runs—‘ There is a free
Rent of a pounde of Peper to be payed out of the
Hospitall yearely to the Mortons, whos Ancestors
were founders of this Hospitall.’ ”

A later master of this hospital became a
celebrated ecclesiastic—John Lake, Bishop of
Chichester 1685-9, who was one of the seven
bishops sent to the Tower by James II. The
chapel afterwards became again desecrated
through the scandalous inaction of later non-
resident masters. When the late Canon Raine
came to Blyth and first saw this chapel in 1834
it was used as a carpenter’s shop. It was soon
afterwards (1839) restored by Mr. Greaves of
Hesley Hall.8

The income of this hospital foundation now
amounts to about £120 a year; the chaplaincy
and mastership has been held by the Rev. Henry
Kendall since 1900; it continues to house and
support two widows.

Masters OF BAWTRY

Roger, 1280
Thomas de Langtoft, 1289 ”°

7 Harl. MS. 7385 ; Anaccount of the Hospital
of St. Mary Magdalen, near Scroby, in Nottingham-
shire, by John Slacke, Master of that Hospital.’ It
was printed by T. Hearne in 1725, as one of several
appendices to Peter Langtoffs Chron. (ii, 389-438).
It is supposed that Thomas de Langtoft, master of
this hospital in the reign of Edward I, was a brother
or near relative of Langtoft the chronicler, who was
a canon regular of Bridlington, Yorks,

Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 179-80.

® Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 81.

® Tbid. fol. 107.

Roger, 1299 ”

Adam Usflet, c. 13207

Elyas de Thoreston, resigned 1361
John de Grandle, 1361 *

Henry Barton, resigned 1363 *
Roger de Nassington, 1363 *°
Robert del Strete, occurs 1390”
William Myrfyne, occurs 1403 *
Roger Malton, died 1421 *
William Sadeler, 1421 *°

Thomas Wirell, c. 1450

John Hawkins, c. 1510”

William Hollgill, occurs 1527 ¥
Richard Pygott, occurs 1534 ™
William Clayburgh, §.T.P., 1549 *
John Houseman, resigned 1584 *°
James Brewster, 1584 *7

John Cooper, 1590 *

John Slacke, 1610

25. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. EDMUND,
BLYTH

There was an ancient leper-house immediately
without Blyth, probably at the northern entrance
to the town ; it was dedicated to the honour of
St. Edmund. Only a single reference to it has been
found. It was probably, like many of these small
lazar-houses near the gates or entrances of towns,
unendowed and entirely dependent on alms.
Henry III, when tarrying at Blyth in January
1228, granted to the proctors of this house (nuncit
leprosorum hospitalis Sancti Edmundi extra Bliam)
letters of protection sine termino, whereby the
king asked his bailiffs and faithful subjects, when
their messengers came seeking alms for the
support of the infirm, that they would admit
them kindly and hasten to extend charity to
them, so that in addition to eternal reward they
might receive their king’s gratitude.”

26. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN
THE EVANGELIST, BLYTH

A hospital dedicated to the honour of St. John
the Evangelist was founded on the south side of -
Blyth in the township of Hodsock in the reign of
King John, by William Cressy, lord of Hodsock.
It was designed for a rector or warden and three

” Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 133.
”? Langtoft’s Chron. ii, 401.

® Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 54. * Tbid.
5 Tbid. fol. 51 * Ibid.
” Pat. 14 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 3.
* Pat. 5 Hen. IV, pt. i, m. 28,
” Harl. MS. 6069, fol. 120. » Thid.
* Langtof?'s Chron. ii, 401. " Ibid.

8 Tbid. 399. * Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 177.
* Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 137. * Ibid. fol. 183.
* Thid. * Langtof?s Chron. ii, 408.
* Ibid. 433. “Pat. 12 Hen. III, m. 6.

164

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

chaplains, and for the residence and relief of
leprous persons ; the patronage was vested in
the lords of Hodsock.*!

Pope Honorius III in 1226 issued a bull
promising the protection of the Holy See to the
possessions and liberties conferred on this lazar-
house by the Prior and Convent of Blyth and by
William de Cressy its pious founder.

Henry III, in a letter dated at Newark
5 January 1230, took under his protection the
brethren of this leper hospital and their possessions,
bidding all his faithful subjects to defend them,
and commending them to their alms and support,
as they would have recompense from God and
from him.*%

Edward II in 1316 licensed Hugh de Cressy
to alienate the large amount of seven messuages
and 4 bovates of land in Blyth and Hodsock
to three chaplains, who were to celebrate daily
in the chapel of St. John the Evangelist of this
hospital.**

Edmund de Cressy, the brother of Hugh,
executed an instrument at Hodsock at Michael-
mas 1320 by which he granted to William de
Howelle and Philip de Ilkeston, chaplains, the
hospital of Hodsock, with all its lands and
appurtenances, together with goods and chattels
to the value of 20 marks. The chaplains under-
took to conduct divine service in the chapel, to
find lights, to keep the buildings in proper repair,
and on their ceasing to officiate to leave behind
them goods to the value of 20 marks. They
were not to be allowed to appropriate to them-
selves any of the revenues; but they were to be
allowed to take any person into the hospital,
spiritual or lay, at their discretion, with the view
of improving its income, that is to receive them
as paying guests. Philip de Ilkeston was to pay
as a subsidy on his entry to office 4 marks.
The bursar was to render his account yearly
before the bailiff of Cressy, who reserved to
himself the right of appointing a third chaplain,
when the rent of a messuage near the gate of the
hospital’s cemetery would admit of it.

A deed on somewhat similar lines—in Norman
French—records the appointment of Robert de
Russyn as chaplain of this hospital by Sir John
Cressy, in 1374.

Sir John Clifton, who died in 1403, had
obtained the Hodsock estate, with the patronage
of the hospital, by marriage with Katharine sister
and co-heiress of Sir Hugh Cressy. Katharine his
widow married for her second husband Ralph
Mackarel ; on his death in 1436 he was entered as
seised of the hospital of St. John the Evangelist,
Blyth.”

“Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 148.
"Dugdale, Mon. iv, 624.

® Pat. 14 Hen. III, m. 7.

“ Pat. g Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 18,
Blyth Chart. fol. 77-8.

6 Tbid. fol. 102.

“Ing. p.m. 14 Hen. VI, no, 21.

About ten years later, namely on 21 July 14.46,
an indulgence of 100 days was granted by the
Archbishop of York to all penitents contributing
‘to the erection and new construction of a
certain house or hospital in Blyth, for receiving
and lodging poor strangers and pregnant women.’
Canon Raine, the historian of Blyth, considers
that this entry in the episcopal registers refers to
a re-establishment of the decayed hospital of St.
John, its leprous inmates having disappeared.*®

The will of Sir Gervase Clifton, great-grand-
son of Sir John Clifton, first lord of Hodsock of
that name, dated 27 April 1491, contains the
following references to this hospital : ‘To John
London and his wiff an annuytie of xxs. of my
lands in Sterop ; for the house which he dwelleth
in belongeth unto the spitell of Blith of my fadir
gift. As for all such landes and tenementes as is
in Blith of my fadir purchase they belongen unto
the spitell of Blith of my said fadir gift, and hit
is my will yat the said spitell have theyme ; and
require my here also yat he make a sufficient
graunte unto the preste of the said spitell of all
such landes and tenementes with th’appurtenance
as I have purchased in Blith aforesaid in aug-
mentacion of the said preste of ye said spitell
lyvelode there.’

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 shows that the
property had sadly deteriorated. Silvanus Clifton
was master, and the income of the hospital, which
he seems to have regarded as solely his, was
£8 145.

When the Survey of Colleges, Chantries,
Hospitals, &c., was taken by the commissioners
of Henry VIII in 1545-6, preparatory to their
overthrow, Robert Cressy was priest of ‘the
Spittell of Blyth,’ saying mass thrice a week
‘by the commandement of the Lorde of Hodsock,’
as appeared by the gift thereof made to him
five years before by Sir Gervase Clifton. The
clear value was then £8 14s. There were no
church goods ‘otherwise than one vestment and
one altar cloth of no valewe and a bell of small
valewe.’ §! Robert Cressy also held the vicarage
of Blyth.

This hospital, in its much reduced state,
escaped confiscation under the action of both
Henry VIII and Edward VI.

Sir Gervase Clifton, made baronet by James I
in 1611, in his will dated October 1662
described himself as patron of the house or hos-
pital of St. John the Evangelist without Blyth,
and Robert Thirlby as ‘maister or rector of the
sayd house and brethren.’ ”

Aslate as 1703 there is record of one Thomas
Ousely being master of this hospital. About
1810 the master’s house, known as Blyth Spital,

“8 Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 149.

“ Thid. 141.

50 Valor Eccl. (Rec Com.), v, 177.

51 Coll. and Chant. Cert. Notts. xiii, 18.
* Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 143.

165

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

was pulled down and replaced by a substantial
farm-house. At the same time the adjoined
houses for the poor inmates were demolished and
six small almshouses built nearer Blyth for six
poor persons, to each of whom the owner of the
Spital property pays the pittance of Ios a
year.°

27. THE HOSPITAL OF BRADEBUSK

The hospital of Bradebusk,™ in the parish of
Gonalston, was an old establishment dedicated
to the honour of St. Mary Magdalene, founded
by William de Heriz in the time of Henry II.

It is named in the Taxation Roll of 1291,
where entry is made of Ecclesia de Gonoldeston,
preter porcionem domus de Bradebuske tndectmabilem,

8.8
In the year 1325 there was an inspeximus and
confirmation of three charters to the masters
and chaplains of this hospital. The first of
these is the foundation charter by which Wil-
liam de Heriz gave to the infirm of Bradebusk
the mill of la Moore with all its appurtenances,
and the mill which was called ‘ Heverard’ near
the church of Lowdham, to hold by rendering
to Simon son of Richard annually a mark as long
as he wished to receive it, and also certain lands
and meadows. They were also authorized to
collect in his grove all the firewood they required.
All this he did for the love of God and the souls
of his father and mother and of all his ancestors.
Among the witnesses to this charter were the
Abbots of Darley and of Rocester. The second
charter is one of Ivo de Heriz, who was probably
the nephew of the founder.*® He granted and
confirmed to the hospital of St. Mary Magdalene
of Bradebusk and to the infirm therein dwelling,
or who should dwell there in the future, fifteen
selions of land near to the said hospital. This
charter is probably early in the reign of Henry III.
The third charter is from John de Heriz, addinz
4 bovates of land in Gonalston to the endow-
ments of the house of Bradebusk and to the
chaplains there serving God, to the intent that
they should pray for the souls of John de Heriz,
Sarah de Heriz (his daughter), and of Henry de
Heriz (his brother). The date of this charter
is at the end of the reign of Henry III or at the
beginning of that of Edward I.”

In 1386 Archbishop Nevill granted a con-
firmatory licence to the chaplains of the chantry
of Bradebusk of celebrating without prejudice to
the church of Gonalston.*

* Raine, Hist. of Blyth, 151.

“The spelling of this place-name varies greatly ;
but this is the form usually adopted in the York Epis.
Reg. © Pipe Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 310.

* See pedigree of the somewhat confusing Heriz
family in Thoroton, Nofts. ili, 50.

Pat. 19 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 16.

§§ Tanner, Nositia.

Henry Marston, rector of Cressinzham, was
admitted to the custody of the hospital of St. Mary
Magdalene of Bradebusk, on the presentation of
Sir Roger de Swillington, on 30 October 1399.
The vacancy arose through the resignation of
Roger Wydmerepull. Sir Roger again presented
in 1406.

Some of the property of this hospital seems
to have been lost before 1534. At that date
the Valor Ecclestasticus names only one chaplain,
Thomas Newton, of the chantry at the chapel
in Gonalston, voc’ Brodebask, and the clear annual
value was £5 18s. 9d. There was evidently
no income for any infirm.

The commissioners of 1545-6 made a like
report as to the annual income. The priest
who received it celebrated three times a week in
the parish church of Gonalston, but the rest of
the week in the hospital chapel of St. Mary
Magdalene, a quarter of a mile from the parish
church,

The commissioners of Edward VI of 1547-8
returned the income as £6 35. od. ; it all went
to Thomas Newenton, chantry priest, who was
reported to be sixty years of age, ‘unlerned, lame
and without any other living.’

When John Kirkby was instituted to the cus-
tody of this chapel in 1556, ‘Georg Moneoux,
com. Nott. armig.’ was patron. Louis Moneoux
was patron in 1603.

The Heriz estates passed by marriage to the
Swillingtons in the time of Richard II, and thence
in the reign of Henry VI to the Pierreponts.
In the reign of Henry VIII Sir William Pierre-
pont sold Gonalston Manor and the advowson of
the chapel of Bradebusk to Alderman Monox of
London.’ The rector of Gonalston is still
technically warden of Bradebusk Hospital.

Wanrobens oF BRADEBUSK

Roger Wydmerepull, resigned 1399

Henry Marston, 1399

Henry Elmessall, resigned 1406 7

John de Asshelby, 1406 ®

William Dyngall, 1421 ®

Thomas Newton, occurs 1547," died 15567
John Kirkby, 15567

Laurence Mitchell, died 1603 7

Hugh Baguley, 1603 7

® Ibid. xxxvii.

” Tbid. fol. 156. ” Thid.

” Ibid. fol. 188. 3 Ibid.

166

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

28. THE HOSPITAL OF ST.
ANTHONY, LENTON

There are two references in the Lenton char-
tulary to a hospital of St. Anthony within the
precincts of the priory.

The earliest of these references records the
grant to the hospital by Anker son of William
of 3 roods of meadow in Bunny ; and the other
of 7 bovates of land in Bradmore by Gervase
de Somerville, to which gift Ralph de Frecheville
added an eighth bovate with common of pasture
and turbary rights.

29. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. LEONARD,
NEWARK

A leper hospital dedicated to the honour of St.
Leonard was founded outside the walls of Newark
by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln (1123-48). A
copy of the charter of foundation is preserved in
the Lincoln registry in an ancient book entitled
Libellus de chartis Pensionum,”

A licence for alienation in mortmain was ob-
tained in 1311 by William Durant of Newark,
to grant to the master of the hospital of St. Leo-
nard in that town two messuages and 20 acres
of land in Newark, Balderton, and Hawton, to
find a chaplain to celebrate daily in the church
of the hospital in honour of the Blessed Virgin
and for the souls of the grantor and Isabel his
wife, Ivo his father, and all his ancestors.”

Protection was granted by Edward II in 1322
from 1 September until the following Easter for
the master of the hospital of St. Leonard without
Newark.”

The patronage of the hospital was in the
hands of the Bishops of Lincoln; but in 1323
Edward II granted the mastership to William de
Northwell, as the temporalities of that see were
then in the king’s hands. A writ de intendendo
was directed to the brethren and sisters of the
hospital.”®

In 1347 John le Chaumbre, king’s clerk, ob-
tained a life grant of this wardenship from Ed-
ward III by reason of the voidance of the see of
Lincoln.”

William de Askebi, warden of the hospital, was
licensed by Pope Clement VI in 1349 to hold
in conjunction with it the rectory of Elton and
a prebend of Lincoln. An extension of this dis-
pensation in 1351 enabled William to hold yet
another benefice.®

On 30 January 1350 the notification of the

4 Lenton Chart. fol. §54, 185 ; cited by Thoroton,
Notts. i, 90, 92.

, > Brown, Newarf, i, 9.

7 Pat. 5 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 7.

7 Pat. 16 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 23.

78 Tbid. m. 2.

7 Pat. 21 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 21.

8 Cal. of Papal Letiers, il, 357, 387.

estate of William son of Hugh de Scoter, as
warden of the hospital of St. Leonard, Newark,
by the collation of the Bishop of Lincoln, was
entered on the Patent Rolls.*!

On 14 June of the same year a licence was
granted by John Gynwell, Bishop of Lincoln, to
Thomas de Sibthorpe, rector of Beckingham, to
give a messuage in Middlegate, Newark, held of
the said bishop as of the hospital of St. Leonard
extra Northgate, unto Robert de Arington,
Robert Leef, and Robert de Stokam, perpetual
chantry priests in the church of Newark, to pray
for the souls of William Saucemer and Matilda
his wife, of William de Glenham, of the said
Thomas de Sibthorpe, and of Isabel Durant.
This messuage was to serve as a residence for
these chantry priests, saving to the hospital the
accustomed rent and services.”

This foundation was further confirmed in
1417 by Philip Repingdon, Bishop of Lincoln,
who decreed that there should be a master having
rule of the hospital, and two poor men kept in
the hospital with a chaplain to perform divine
service, and that the chaplain and the two poor
men were to be received into the hospital and
maintained with the rents and profits of the
same, the residue being devoted to the master’s
use, to the repair of the building and of the
places belonging to it, and to the supporting of
other charges.®

When the Valor Ecclesiasticus was drawn up
in 1534 Christopher Massingbred was master,
and the clear annual value was declared as
£17 15. 93d. The chapel and manse of St.
Leonard, with the close and certain parcels of
meadow in the fields of Newark, were worth
£6 19s. 11d. a year, a cowgate 16s. 6d., mills 405.,
tenements and a grange in Newark £6 6s. 8d.,
rents in Newark {£5 3s. 4d.,and the remaining
income from parcels of lands or rents in South
Clifton, Girton, North Collingham, Cropwell,
Cotham, Balderton, and Hawton. Out of this
the chaplain and three poor men _ received
£6 18s. a year.™

The annual value of this hospital was declared
by the commissioners of Edward VI to be
£17 tos. gd., founded (i.e. refounded) by Philip,
Bishop of Lincoln, for a priest to say divine ser-
vice there and to find three poor bedesmen to
serve God, and also to maintain hospitality.
They found a chaplain in receipt of £5 a year,
and £3 18s. distributed annually among the poor ;
the remaining income went tothe master. They
further declared that the hospital was a parish
church of itself, having all sacraments and
sacramentals therein ministered and observed.®

This was one of the hospitals that escaped

| Pat. 24 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 35.

8 Shilton, Hist. of Newark (1820), 263-4.
% Brown, Newark, 9.

* Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 190.

& Chant. and Coll. Cert. Notts, xxxvii.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

destruction at the hands of Edward VI. This
hospital of St. Leonard, usually called the Spittal,
was leased to Sir Robert Constable, and hence
passed to William Cecil, Earl of Exeter, who
built there a goodly house; after his death this
house with the surroundings was exchanged by
Act of Parliament, 17 Charles I, with the hos-
pital for lands of better value, and settled on his
widow the Countess Dowager of Exeter and her
heirs. The Act provided that the countess was,
within three years, to build a house of brick or
stone, roofed with tile or slate, consisting of eight
rooms, viz. four low rooms and four chambers
over them to receive the master, chaplain, and
two poor men from in or near Newark, and to
inclose an acre of ground with a brick or stone
wall to serve as an orchard and garden.®

The St. Leonard’s Hospital charity is now
endowed with valuable property in Newark,
Girton, Balderton, Claypole, and Elston, mostly
let on unexpired leases. There are six alms-
houses in Northgate, erected in 1890, which
accommodate four single men and two married
couples ; each inmate receives 10s. a week.

Masters oF THE HosPiTaL oF ST. LEONARD

William de Northwell, 1323”
John le Chaumbre, 1347 ®
William de Askebi, occurs 134.9 ®
William de Scoter, 1358 ®
Christopher MIassingbred, 1534

30. THE HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY
SEPULCHRE, NOTTINGHAM

Very little isknown of this ancient foundation.
Bishop Tanner was the first to call attention to
its existence in his Notitia Mona:tica, by referring
to a Patent Roll entry of 1267, where mention
is made of the brethren of the Holy Sepulchre of
Nottingham.”

In 1283 Edward I granted protection for a
year to the master and brethren of St. Sepulchre’s,
Nottingham, for the collection of alms.”

A boundary reference among the town docu-
ments of the year 1307 makes mention of the
‘land beyond the ditch of the town next the
cemetery of Saint Sepulchre.’®* The fact of
this house possessing a cemetery of its own is
sufficient to show that it was at one time a

® Thoroton, Nofts. i, 390-1.

* Pat. 16 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 2.

Pat. 21 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 21.

® Cal. of Papal Letters, iii, 337, 387.

* Pat. 24 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 35.

Vakr Eccl. v, 190.

@ Pat. 51 Hen. III, m. 24 ; Fratres S. Sepukhri de
Nortingham.

Pat. 11 Edw: I, ms 27.

™ Nort. Bor. Rec. i, 438.

foundation of importance; there are, however,
no later references to it.

An undated confirmation by Henry II of tke
foundation of a hospital at Nottingham, c. 1170,
though no name is given, may be taken with
virtual certainty to refer to that of the Holy Sepul-
chre. By this charter confirmation was given to
a grant of 33 acres of land to the palmers of Not-
tingham, which Robert de Saint Remy had given
them to establish a hospital for poor men, for the
soul of his brother Richard de Saint Remy.®

The bull of Pope Lucius HI (1182-5) to
the master and brethren of the almshouse of
Nottingham probably refers to this foundation.
By this bull the pope placed the house under the
protection of St. Peter and himself, ordering that
no one should dare to exact tithes from them of
their gardens, trees, or fodder of their animals.

There was an early-founded order of canons
regular of the Holy Sepulchre, which had several ‘
small houses in the British Isles, the first of
them being established at Warwick.®© This order
was specially connected with the pilgrims of
Jerusalem, and it can hardly be doubted that
the ‘palmers’ referred to above were the canons
of this house of the Holy Sepulchre. After the
fall of Jerusalem in 1188, this special order
began to decay, and most of their lands and
revenues were transferred, in the time of Henry III,
to the friars of the Holy Trinity for the redemp-
tion of captives. The house at Warwick con-
tinued as an ordinary Austin priory. At Stam-
ford a house or hospital of St. Sepulchre is defi-
nitely mentioned both in the 12th and 13th
centuries ; but, as at Nottingham, it afterwards
dropped out of notice.” Possibly in both cases
it became absorbed into some other hospital. It
is clear, however, that at Nottingham, after the
order of canons of the Holy Sepulchre had ccased
to exist, the inmates were termed brethren, and
continued for some little time to carry on hospital
functions.

31. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN
BAPTIST, NOTTINGHAM

The hospital of St. John Baptist, commonly
known as St. John’s, was an early foundation,
outside the walls on the north side of the town.
Until recently local historians, following the
lead given by the usually accurate Thoroton,
connected the house with the Knights Hospital-
lers, with which order this hospital had no con-
nexion of any kind,®

* Stapleton, Relig. Inst. of Old Nott. 196.

® Y.C.H. Warw. ii, 97.

7 V.C.H. Northants, ii, 195.

* The mistake may have been due to confusion with
the canons of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and
their connexion with the hospital of that name in
Nottingham.

168

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

From the beginning of the 13th century on-
wards this hospital is known by its dedicatory
name. It stood close by the side of the im-
portant road to the north which traversed the
town; and to the brethren was committed, in
the first half of this century, the important duty
of keeping the Trent Bridge in repair and col-
lecting alms for that purpose.

The earliest reference to the brethren of this
hospital cited by Tanner is of the year 1202,
when they were entrusted with keeping in repair
the great bridge? In 1221 Henry III took
under his express protection the brethren of
St. John, to whom was committed the custody
and repair of the bridge ; strenuously enjoining
that they were not to be in any way molested,
vexed, or impeded, and that a generous response
was to be made to their gatherings for the repair
fund. In 1229 the brothers of this hospital,
who are again stated to have undertaken the
making and repairing of Nottingham Bridge,
were once more taken under the protection of
Henry III.

Pope Honorius III in 1220 wrote to the
Archbishop of York to the effect that the master
and brethren of St. John’s had petitioned for a
chaplain and a cemetery, and commanded the
latter as diocesan to grant their request without
prejudice to anyone’s rights. It is probable that
this was speedily done, though there is no formal
record of it extant earlier than 1234.1?

About 1225 Hugh de Nevill, justice of the
forest, granted the hospital the important privi-
lege of gathering two cart-loads of firewood
weekly in the wood of Arnold, for the use of
the poor occupants. When Henry III was at
Nottingham in November 1251 he granted a
formal ratification of this gift.1°

At this period (not later than 1235) occurs
what has been mistakenly termed the foundation
charter, by which one Robert son of Ralph son
of Fulk of Nottingham gave the brethren of
St. John’s 8 oxgangs of land at Stanton on
the Wolds, a windmill and 20 acres of land
in the field of Nottingham, and all the houses
erected within the convent yard of the hospital.
Durand, brother of this Robert, was at that time
prior.

Of approximately the same date is a charter
of Robert de Salcey, granting 2 oxgangs of
his demesne land at Stanton, a cultivated plot of
land called ‘ Rihelands,’ together with pasturage
for 200 sheep, eight oxen, six cows, two horses,
and ten swine.!®

In 1235 Pope Gregory IX took the almshouse
of Nottingham under his special protection.

* Pat. 3 John, m. 3. 1 Pat. 5 Hen. III, m. 4.
10) Pat. 14 Hen. III, m. 7.

102 Nort. Bor. Rec. i, xiii, 20.

103 Chart. R. 36 Hen. III, m. 26.
104 Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 4.

16 Ibid. i, 26.

' Ibid. 16,

Archbishop Gray in 1232 confirmed to the
brethren of the hospital of the Blessed John at
Nottingham all their possessions and goods con-
ferred on them by the pious devotion of the
faithful. He placed the hospital and brethren
under the protection of the Blessed Peter and
Paul, solemnly warning anyone against invading
their possessions or in any way presuming to
rashly disturb them.!”

On the feast of St. Andrew 1234 the arch-
bishop promulgated an ordinance for this hospital
whereby it was determined that, with the con-
sent of the rector and patrons of St. Mary’s, the
brethren should have a chapel and a chaplain for
divine worship for themselves and their guests ;
that the chaplain was to solemnly swear not in
any way whatsoever to defraud the Prior and
Convent of Lenton of any kind of due or offer-
ing; that the rector or master of the hospital
should take a like oath ; that the hospital should
have a cemetery for the brethren or for any who
died there ; that no other parishioners were to
confess, to receive the Eucharist, or to be buried
within the hospital; that the brethren were to
have a bell on the roof to call them to mattins
and the hours, to mass, to vespers, and to com-
pline ; that on the day of St. John Baptist the
perpetual vicar of that church, or some one on
his part, should celebrate in the hospital and
receive all oblations and all other oblations that
had been made in the hospital during the previous
year ; that on the festivals of the Blessed Virgin
there should be no celebration within the hospital
save with closed doors and in a low voice; that
the brethren, in recompense for the oblations
and obventions customarily made before this
present ordinance, should give a mark of silver
annually tothe mother church ; that the brethren
were not to have an outer door in the chapel
towards the town; and that if the chaplain,
master, or brethren are guilty of any excess, they
should be canonically punished by the Arch-
deacon of Nottingham, or in his absence by the
rural dean of the place.

To this instrument were affixed the seals of
the archbishop, of the Prior and Convent of
Lenton, and of the vicar of St. Mary’s,!° and in
making this ordination the archbishop had the
express authority, under seal, of the burgesses of
Nottingham.1

In 1241 Archbishop Gray sent to Robert
Alwin, the master, detailed rules to be observed
by the brethren and sisters (the latter being now
mentioned for the first time), of which the follow-
ing is an abstract :—(1t) Two chaplains to be
provided ; (2) all the brethren to assemble for
mattins at daybreak from Michaelmas to Eas-
ter, after mass to betake themselves to their
respective duties, and to attend evensong and .

1” York Epis. Reg. Gray, fol. 33-4.
™8 Ibid. fol. 168-78.
109 Thid.

2 169 22

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

compline if not hindered of necessity ; (3) regu-
larly to obey the warden or master; (4) the
warden, if he has anything of his own, to con-
vert it to the benefit of the house; (5) all to
wear the like habit, and to take their meals to-
gether in silence, or speaking low if forced to
speak, and only to eat meat on Sundays, Tues-
days, and Thursdays, save by licence of the
warden ; (6) to occupy one dormitory, clothed in
breeches and shirts, or in the garment used in-
stead of a shirt, and to observe silence in the
dormitory until after the first Cantate ; (7) to be
chaste and sober, not to drink in borough or
suburbs, and faithfully to employ the goods of the
house and alms given to the necessities of the
poor and infirm; (8) to wear a regular habit of
russet or black cloth, and to assemble in the
chapter-house at least once a week; (9) all ex-
cesses to be regulated by the warden; (10) no
brethren nor sisters admitted but such as are
necessary to serve the infirm and keep the goods
of the house; (11) no brother to go into the
town or elsewhere, save by leave of the warden ;
(12) the sisters to observe the same things ap-
pointed for the brethren ; (13) the lay brethren
and sisters at the beginning of mattins to say
the Creed and Our Father, so that twenty-five
Our Fathers be said, and seven at prime, terce,
sext and nones and compline, but fifteen at
evensong, and after the compline another Our
Father and Creed ; (14) one hundred other Our
Fathers to be said every week, for the brethren
and sisters dead and living, and also for the bene-
factors of the house.!?

A considerable variety of minor grants to the
hospital made about the middle of the 13th
century, chiefly in Nottingham or its immediate
vicinity, are cited in the Records, as well as two
more substantial grants of lands at Kirkby in
Ashfield."

Archbishop Wickwane issued his mandate at
the close of 1279 to the Dean of Nottingham to
compel the vicar of St. Mary’s to replace the
goods of this hospital, which he had, as it was
alleged, transferred from thence, and to make
restitution without any delay ; provided that the
hospital is in as good or better state as it used to
be, and that it is capable of having custody of
them)”

In the following March the care and custody
of the hospital of St. John was committed b
the archbishop to Robert, vicar of Retford.133

In 1286 Edward I granted the wardenship of

4° "These statutes appear in York Epis. Reg. Green-
field, fol. 171, and they are transcribed in Dugdale,
Mon. vi, 679-70. They are also set forth in full in
the Bor. Rec. (i, 29-33), where they are followed
by an office for the admission of the brethren, which
is beautifully worded in solemn terms.

™ Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 36-46.

™? York Epis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 1 3d.

"3 Thid. fol. r21.

this hospital for life to Alan de Salopia, king’s
clerk, the king claiming the presentation on
account of the voidance of the see of York.'*

On 29 September 1289 Archbishop Romayne
appointed Thomas de Cancia, his priest, master
of St. John’s Hospital, Nottingham, with all its
burdens and rights both temporal and spiritual,
in full confidence that he would deal faithfully
with the poor and with the goods of the house.
He was to have power to dispose of goods
acquired within three years. But afterwards, if
it should happen that he resigned or left, he must
leave seed for the hospital lands and oxen for the
ploughs."*

A commission was issued by the archbishop in
January 1289-90 to the Dean of Nottingham
and to the diocesan sequestrator, on behalf of
Thomas de Cancia, master of St. John’s Hos-
pital, about goods taken from that house. John
le Palmer, executor of the will of Lord Hugh
de Stapleford, deceased, deposed that Hugh when
living had deprived the hospital of certain houses
and inflicted other damages; and Thomas de
Rempeston owned to having wronged the hos-
pital of meadow hay during two years, and made
submission. Restitution was ordered to be
made.!!8

In 1304 Edward I granted the life warden-
ship of his hospital to Robert de Sutton, king’s
clerk, owing to the voidance of the see of York.”

In 1310 Archbishop Greenfield wrote to
Robert de Elton, master of the hospital, to make
provision for Nicholas de Danelby, who enjoyed
a place in that hospital, having been commended
to Thomas de Cancia, the late master, by Arch-
bishop Corbridge.!8

There was a great decline in the life and work
of this hospital about the beginning of the 14th
century, a condition of things from which it
never recovered, chiefly owing to the laxity and
non-residence of the masters or wardens.

In 1325 Archbishop William de Melton
issued a severe mandate to Matthew de Halifax,
rebuking him for living alone in the hospital, and
ordering him to take one or two fit brethren, as
the means of the hospital permitted, to live with
him, all wearing a decent habit, such as used to
be worn in times past ; rendering prayers to the
Highest daily and nightly, and devoting the
whole of their lives to the Saviour of all. A
commission of inquiry then instituted reported
that the master or warden was originally appointed
by the community, or burgesses, of Nottingham ;
but that Archbishop Giffard happening to be at
the castle of Nottingham 1% during a voidance,
when there was great dissension between the

™ Pat. 14 Edw, I, m. 19.
™ York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 75.

NS Thid. fol. 75 d. "7 Pat. 32 Edw. I, m. 2.
" Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 236. ; :

aie : :
"The archbishop’s register shows that he was at
Nottingham on several occasions in the winter of 1270.

170

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

townsmen as to the appointment, the archbishop
(whom they dared not at that time gainsay) in-
tervened and instituted one Ralph Wilford as
warden ; and that at the next voidance, the see
of York being vacant, the king intervened and
instituted Malcolm de Harley "8? as warden; and
so up to that time the election and institution
had continued without any right or sanction of
the community of the town. The jury of this
commission further returned that the hospital
was originally so endowed in lands and chattels,
granted to a master, two chaplains, the brethren
and sisters and the poor of the house, that all
was to be held in common; that the charters
and writings were in possession of the master
and could not be inspected, so that they knew
not whether any had been abstracted or not ;
that the goods were not then sufficient for alms,
as used to be the case, because Henry de Calver-
ton, Robert Ker, and Thomas de Cancia, as
masters, had deteriorated and wasted the pro-
perty, converting it to their own uses; that
there used to be two priests celebrating divine
service there, but that there was then no priest
save the master ; that the rule ordained by Arch-
bishop Gray and written on a missal had for
long time been missing, having been maliciously
cut out by a warden, but that the leaf had recently
by divine grace been found and could be produced
before the archbishop ; that the hospital was so
completely destroyed and annihilated that with-
out the divine grace and the counsel and assist-
ance of the archbishop, they knew not how it
could be relieved ; and finally that there used to
be a hospital seal.19

Matthew de Halifax died in 1329 ; but Arch-
bishop Melton’s choice of a successor brought
about no improvement.

In November 1332 Master John Lambok of
Nottingham, parson of the church of Elkesley,
master of the hospital of St. John Baptist, Not-
tingham, on going beyond the seas, had protec-
tion and also letters nominating Bartholomew
de Cotgrave and John de Shirewode his attorneys
in England for two years.1”

The hospital probably saw little or nothing of
this pluralist. Whilst absent from England he
obtained a dispensation at the court of Rome to
cover all his pluralities.

In October 1333 Pope John XXII allowed
John Lambok, M.A., skilled in civil and canon
law, to hold the canonry of Wilton and prebend
of Chalk, notwithstanding that he was rector of
Elkesley in the diocese of York, and also
warden of the house of St. John Baptist,
Nottingham.

"8 For Malcolm de Harley, the king’s clerk, see
Cal. Close, 1271-88, passim.

N® Nott. Bor. Rec. i, g°-43; Stapleton, Relig. Inst.
of Old Nott. 30-3. .

20 Pat. 6 Edw. III, pt. iii, m. 11.

11 Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 398.

Licence was granted to the master, brethren,
and chaplains in 1350 to acquire land and rent
in mortmain, not held in chief, to the value of
£10 yearly. There is, however, no informa- —
tion as to any benefactors availing themselves of
this sanction.

Archdeacon John de Nottingham, who was
warden of this hospital at the opéning of the
15th century, was an outrageous pluralist. In
1402 Pope Boniface IX collated him to the pro-
vision of canonries of York, Salisbury, Lincoln,
Beverley, Ripon, and Southwell, with reservation
of a prebend in each; and this notwithstand-
ing that healready held the archdeaconry of Not-
tingham, canonries with prebends in Chichester
and Lichfield and in the chapel royal, Tettenhall,
as well as the parish church of Cottingham and
the wardenship of the hospitals of St. John’s
Nottingham and of St. Mary Magdalen
Ripon.3

Grant for life of the wardenship was made by
Henry VII in 1424, with the advice and assent
of the council, to John Tamworth, clerk.

In February 1431-2 an action was brought
by the warden, Roger Hunt, against Thomas
Taylor, clerk, of the school of Nottingham, for
rent of houses the property of the hospital. A
verdict was given for the plaintiff.”

For an aid granted to the king in January
1503-4, St. John’s Hospital is assessed at the
small annual value of £5 65. 84.1"

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 gives a like
assessment, but the clear annual value was only
£4 135. 4d., as a pension of 13s. 4d. had to be
paid to the priory of Lenton.”

Leland, who visited Nottingham about 1540,
entered in his journal :—‘S. John Hospitall
almoste downe, without the towne.’ !*8

The commissioners appointed by Henry VIII
in 1545 to arrange for the transference to the
Crown of colleges, chantries, and hospitals,
apparently found no master, chaplain, or poor at
St. John’s Nottingham. ‘They reported that
one Roger Oker farmed it, who stated on oath
that he knew nothing as to the time or the
intent for which it was founded. On 12 October
1540 Oker had made an indenture by which he
was to pay yearly to the master the sum of
£6 9s. 4d. The commissioners add further
evidence as to the master’s mean and pilfering
conduct :—

Abought iij or ilij yere paste, att the commaunde-
mente of oon Henrye Whitinge then Mr. of the same
hospitall, the said Roger Oker did take of all the

7 Pat. 24. Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 1.

"8 Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 492-3.

™ Pat. 2 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 5 ; 3 Hen. VJ, pt. i,
m. 14.

1% Nort. Bor. Rec. ii, 128.

16 Thid. iii.

"7 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 157.

8 Leland, Jfin, viii, 24.

171

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

leade of the said hospitall and made a newe Roffe for
the same and covered ytt with slatte, and that the
same leade dyd amounte to iij foders and some what
more. Whiche was sold by the Comaundement of the
said Henrye Whitinge to Olyver Dande of Mannys
feld for ix/i. xvis. viijd. and over that he solde the
said tyme to dyverse men of Nottingham certyn other
webbes of leade the weights therof nor yet the monye
he remembrithe not.'”

Under Edward VI came about the final wreck
of this once useful and devout establishment, after
so many years of shameless pillage by those who
ought to have been its genuine wardens. The
Certificates of Colleges, Hospitals, &c., doomed to
dissolution in 1548-9 stat» :—

The Hospitall of Saint Johannes without the Wall
in the parishe of Saint Maries there founded by
whome they knowe not for the relief of the poore
and worthe in Lands Tenements and other possessions
lying and being in Diverse places within the said
Towne and Shere of Nottingham, As by the Survey
therof made remayning with the Surveyour of the saide

sheire particularly yt doth appere LO 135. 42.
Whereof in Rente res>lute 135. 4d.
and so remayneth unto Thomas

Webster, clarke, master of the saide

hospitall, of what age or of what

lerninge it is unknowne £3 173; Od?”

From this it is evident that the masters kept
up their evil character to the end, for Webster
clearly treated this preferment as a sinecure, and
was non-resident.

In February 1551 the property of the hospital,
with that of other small religious foundations of
the town, was diverted by Edward VI towards
the sustentation of Trent Bridge, and conveyed
for that purpose to the mayor and burgesses. An
inquisition in June of the following year found
that for a long time before 1540 the late master
and his brother chaplains wholly withdrew and
absented themselves from the hospital and had
never since returned, whereby divine services,
prayers, almsziving and other works of piety had
remained totally unperformed. Meanwhile the
corporation were put to no small trouble by the
last master, Thomas Webster, who had been in-
ducted in 1545 by the Archbishop of York. He
exhibited a bill in Chancery in 1553, complain-
ing that he was seised of the mansion-house of
the hospital of St. John, of three other messu-
ages, and of 400 acres of land, meadow, and pasture
in Nottingham and Stanton on the Wolds, and
that the corporation had made an untrue sugges-
tion that the property had come into the king’s
hands by reason of the Act 37 Henry VIII, cap.
4, for the suppression of certain chantries and
hospitals. The town replied, citing the king’s
grant of 1551. Webster rejoined, citing his in-
duction on g December 1545, and stating that
at that time, or shortly afterwards, two poor men

‘® Coll. and Chant. Cert. Notts. xiii, 38.
™ Dugdale AMczn. vi, 680.

were brethren of the hospital, one named Bacon
and the other Fellowe.

Failing in Chancery, Webster in 1561 ex-
hibited a bill of complaint against the mayor and
burgesses stating that through being spoilt of the
hospital he had suffered Joss to the clear annual
value of £10. The mayor and burgesses were
cited to appear at York Minster on 30 Septem-
ber. The archbishop lectured them severely, and
threatened to impose a heavy fine, saying that
his court was as high as that of Chancery. The
town clerk appeared again at York on 3 De-
cember on behalf of the corporation, but Webster
did not appear to prosecute, and the opposition
to the king’s grant of 1551 speedily evaporated.

In 1601 the old hospital buildings were turned
into a poor-house, and somewhat later into a
house of correction.")

Priors oF St. Joun’s 1}

Durandus, c. 1230

Robert Alwin, occurs 1241

Ralph Wilford, c. 1270
Malcolm de Harley, 1279
Robert, vicar of Radford, 1280 19?
Alan de Salopia, 1286 1°8
Thomas de Cancia, 1289 4
Henry de Calverton, } 1°

Robert Ker

Robert de Sutton, 1304
John Dant, 1307 1%”
Robert de Elton, occurs 1310 8

Roger son of Richard de Whatton, 1311 1
Matthew de Halifax, 1323 1°

John Lambok, occurs 1332 ™!

John Brun, 1343

Ralph Yarwell, 1349

Robert de Yarwell, 1356

John de Houdon, 1363

Willham Askham, 1371

John de Nottingham, died 1418

Robert Clough, 1418

John Tamworth, 1424 ™

John Mosley, 1427

William Woodgrave

Roger Hunt, occurs 1432 148

136

*" For the post-Reformation history of this founda-
tion see Relig. Inst. of Old Nott. i, 34-8.

Bh [bid 32,

“ Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 65.

*S Pat. 14 Edw. I, m. 19.

™ Harl. MS. 6970 fol. 106.

% Mentioned in conjunction with Thomas de
Cancia as former masters ina document of 1325. Nott.
Bor. Rec. i, 92.

86 Pat. 32 Edw. I, m. 2.

87 Town MSS,

* Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 236.

"9 Ibid. fol. 238.

“0 Noit. Bor. Rec. i, 95.

™ Pat. 6 Edw. III, pt. iii, m. 11.

M Pat.2 Hen. V1, pt: i,m: 5

"8 Nott. Bor. Rec. ii.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

John Grenville, 1447

John Alestre, 1464

Edward Carter, occurs 1534 4
Henry Whiting, c. 1542 45
Thomas Webster, 1545 14™

32. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. LEONARD,
NOTTINGHAM

The Nottingham leper hospital of St. Leonard
was certainly in existence as early as the reign of
Henry II (1154-89). Henry II, when at Not-
tingham in 1231, instructed Brian de Lisle to
allow the leprous brethren of St. Leonard’s to
have a cart to collect dead wood in Bestwood, as
they had done in the times of the king’s ances-
tors ; and when this grant was renewed in 1226
it is expressly stated that it was confirmatory of
like grants made by Henry II and by John.

This house, which stood outside the walls on
the north side of the town, is mentioned in a
grant to St. John’s Hospital c. 1230, wherein
half an acre of land is described as abutting upon
the hospital of St. Leonard.” Another 13th-
century grant to St. John’s describes a parcel of
land as lying between the land of St. Leonard
and that of the church of St. Mary.148

In a charter of the year 1339 there is refer-
ence to an acre of arable land at Snapedale, Not-
tingham, ‘abutting upon the dovecote of the
house of St. Leonard.’ *° This in itself is suffi-
cient to prove that the house was at this time en-
dowed with a fair amount of land, otherwise a
dovecote would not have been sanctioned.

An interesting record of 1341-2 tells us that
the Prior of Lenton then pleaded that his tithe
income from St. Mary’s parish was diminished
owing to the fact that 60 acres of land pertaining
to St. Leonard’s Hospital was lying barren and
uncultivated, and that the adjoining chapel of St.
Michael had been recently destroyed.”

In 1358 William Chaundeler, keeper or war-
den of the hospital of St. Leonard, was charged
with making an encroachment of half an acre
in the king’s demesnes, within the court of the
town of Notttingham.1*}

Until we get to the time of Henry VIII the
town records, strange to say, are entirely silent
with regard to this leper hospital, except by
way of occasionally making a bare mention of
it in reciting boundaries of property.)

Amid the enrolment of grants at the local

4 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 157.

M45 Col]. and Chant. Cert. Notts. xiii, 38.

16a See above.

M6 Close, 5 Hen. III, m. 7; 10 Hen. III. m. 9.
“7 Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 16.

MS Tbid. i, 44.

48 Thid. i, 402.

150 Ing, Non. (Rec. Com.), 290.

51 Deering, Nort. 153.

189 Nort. Bor. Rec. i, 2223 ii, 443.

court in 1335 to William de Amyas of Notting-
ham, a piece of land lying in the field of Not-
tingham is described as abutting upon the land
of the hospital of St. Michael.45? The house of
St. Michael is also mentioned as a land boundary
in an enrolment of grant to John Taunesley in
1416.4 These entries have given rise to some
confusion ; but, from the position of this house,
it becomes quite clear that in both cases the real
reference is to St. Leonard’s Hospital ; the close-
ness of the old chapel of St. Michael gave rise to
this error in title.355

An important document of 1521 throws much
light on the functions formerly discharged by this
hospital, though at the date when it was drawn
up it is highly improbable that there were any
lepers in the town of Nottingham, so that the
warden of St. Leonard’s held a sinecure office.
By this document the mayor, burgesses, and
community confirmed to Thomas Gibbonson,
chaplain, the hospital house of St. Leonard,
vacant by the death of John Alestre, the late
warden, withall lands, tenements, rents, &c., there-
to belonging, for his whole life, subject to the
charge of sustaining and housing the lepers born
of the liberty of the town of Nottingham, sup-
plying each of them for three weeks with a
bushel of wheat and pease and one piece of
cloth of the value of 2s., according to the ori-
ginal form and foundation of the hospital ; it
was also provided that the warden was to be al-
lowed to have yearly three cart-loads of firewood
to burn in his chamber,?°°

In 1534 the mayor and burgesses appointed
William Lewes, chaplain, to the wardenship of
St. Leonard’s.1*7

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of this same year has
no reference to this hospital, although it enters
the income received by the warden, William
Lewes, from the chantry of St. Mary, which he
also held.4*8 Nor is this hospital named in the
certificates of the commissioners of either Henry
VIII or Edward VI.

The possessions of St. Leonard’s appear to have
remained with the corporation, and there is some
slight proof of a small continuance of a charitable
foundation in an entry in the chamberlain’s ac-
counts as late as 1571-2.) This reference to
‘a lasar of the Spytell House” has been some-
what absurdly twisted to mean that leprosy still
continued at Nottingham in Elizabeth’s days,
and that the sufferers were provided for at the
town’s expense. All that it necessarily implies
was that there was an almsman living at the old
hospital. ‘Thus at Northampton the borough re-
tained the old leper hospital of St. Leonard and

8 Thid. i, 24. 1 Thid. ii, 110.
Stapleton, Relig. Inst. of Old Nott. ii, 148-9.

6 Nott. Bor. Rec. iii, 150.

¥7 Ibid. 442.

8 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 157.

8 Nort, Bor. Rec. ii, 142.

173

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

placed an almsman there, who received 25. a
year, a suit of clothes, and a load of firewood ;
he was called the ‘lazer’ or the ‘lazerman’ as
late as the 18th century.’®

Warovens OF ST. LEONARD’S

William Chaundeler, occurs 1358 1
John Alestre, died 1521

Thomas Gibbonson, appointed 1521 1
William Lewes, appointed 15347

az. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY AT
WEST BAR, NOTTINGHAM

Protection was granted for two years by
Edward III in 1330 to the leprous men of the
hospital of St. Mary atte Westebarre, Nottingham,
when collecting alms for the support of their
house. This protection was renewed for
another two years in July 1334.)

Nothing more is known of this lazar-house ;
it is not once mentioned in the borough records.
Most of England’s walled towns had small
lazar-houses at their gates—sometimes, as at
Norwich,’ at each gate—which were unen-
dowed and chiefly supported by the casual alms
of travellers or of charitable townsfolk.

34. PLUMTREE’S HOSPITAL,
NOTTINGHAM

John Plumtree of Nottingham obtained
licence from Richard II in July 1392 to found
a hospital or Domus Dei at the Bridge End (now
Red Lion Square), to be served by two chaplains,
one of whom was to be the master or warden,
for the support of thirteen aged poor widows.
The founder endowed it with a messuage on
which the house was built and with ten other
messuages and two tofts all within the borough
of Nottingham.!”

In this case, as in many others, preparations
for the establishment of a house of this character
were made some little time before the formal
legal sanction had been obtained. There are two
documents of the year 1390 among the town
muniments transferring land to the founder for
this hospital.!6&

John de Plumtree was a leading burgess of
the community and was thrice mayor, namely

18 Northampt. Bor. Rec. ii, 332-3.
181 Deering, Nott 153.

13 Nett. Bor. Rec. ili, 150.

18 Ibid. 442.

17 Pat. 16 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 28.
6 Nott. Bor. Rec. i, 249.

in 1385-6, 1394-5, and 1408-9. This hos-
pital, dedicated in honour of the Annunciation
of the Blessed Virgin, was founded for the good
estate of the founder, of his wife Emma, and for
their souls after death, and for the souls of their
parents and other ancestors. To emphasize this
purpose a chantry was ordained, in the year
1400, at the altar of the Annunciation in the
chapel of this hospital. By this document a
stipend of £5 was assigned to each of the chap-
lains, and the presentation, after the founder’s
death, vested in the Prior and Convent of
Lenton.1®

Prior, however, to the formal founding of this
chantry, an important special recognition of the
altar of St. Mary was obtained from Boniface IX.
The pope, in February 1393, granted relaxation
of two years and two quadragene of enjoined
penance to penitents who on the principal feasts
of the year or their octaves, and of 100 days to
those who during the six days of Whitsun week,
visited and gave alms at the altar of St. Mary in
St. Mary’s Hospital, Nottingham, in Fishergate,
for the construction of the same.!”°

The first two chaplains entered in the epis-
copal registers were Thomas Tawburne, master,
and John de Coventry, second chaplain. They
were instituted on the same day that Archbishop
Scrope confirmed the establishment of the
chantry, namely on 22 July 1400."

Boniface IX in 1402 granted to the warden
and others of the hospital of the Annunciation of
St. Mary the Virgin, at the Bridge End, Not-
tingham, exemption for all their houses, posses-
sions, and goods, present and future, from all
jurisdiction of the ordinary, taking them under
the immediate protection of St. Peter and the
apostolic see, to which alone they were to be
subject both in spiritualities and temporalities ;
with indult to the warden and his successors to
grant to the brethren and sisters plenary re-
mission in the article of death, and power to
choose and depute three or more fit priests, over
and above the number of two priests as instituted
by the founder, for the celebration of divine
offices. The pope further directed that the
warden and chaplain shall in future, on greater
double feasts, celebrate or cause to be celebrated
mass and other divine offices in the hospital
chapel solemnly with music.!”

Although thirteen widows are named in the
foundation of this house, it does not appear certain
that the endowments were ever sufficient in old
days to maintain such a number. The will of
Anne Plumtree, 1403, leaves to the widows of
this hospital a dozen of woollen cloth to be
divided among them. The will of Henry
Plumtree, elder brother of the founder, 1408,

York Epis. Reg. Scrope, fol. 75.

% Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 450.

™ Stapleton, Relig. Inst. of Old Nott. 78.
™ Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 489.

174

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

left 12d. to every bed of the hospital then
occupied.”

By a singular choice, this chapel was used in
January 1408-9 for the marriage of Sir Edward
Pierrepont to Margaret Rempston ; a licence for
this purpose was issued by the archbishop to
Thomas Tawburne, the warden.1”4

An enrolment of enfeoffment, at the local
court, of John de Plumtree of the possessions of
his hospital, dated 20 May 1414, is extant
among the town muniments. From this docu-
ment it appears that there were two chapels
within the precincts, evidently distinct build-
ings, one of St. Thomas the Martyr and the
other of St. Mary; probably the former was a
small oratory pertaining to the masters.” Both
chapels were to the rear or to the east of the
dwelling portions; that of St. Thomas on the
north or Fishergate side, and that of St. Mary
on the south.

The founder in 1415, probably disappointed
of the help of others in this foundation, and
recognizing that there was not a sufficiency to
support thirteen widows, executed an amending
instrument, by which he confirmed the appoint-
ment of two priests, raising the stipend of the
warden to £6, and limiting the number of poor
widows to seven. At the same time he
augmented the chantry by giving it his dwelling-
house in Cuckstool Road, after his death and
after the death of Thomas Plumtree, chaplain,
his kinsman. Shortly after this the founder died,
leaving 20s. to each of the widows.’

Save for the record of the institution of suc-
cessive chaplains, nothing more is known of this
hospital until 1503, when in a taxation of lands
and tenements of Nottingham the brief entry is
made :—‘ The Chaunterie of John Plomtre at ye
Briggend, £18.77

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 gives the full
annual value of the hospital property as £13 10s.
William Baker was warden, and he and his fellow
chaplain would absorb f11; £1 10s. was all
that went to the poor (the widows seem to have
quite disappeared), whilst the remaining 205.
went in various small dues to the burgesses of
Nottingham, Lenton Priory, Newstead Priory,
and the manor of Sutton Passeys.'”

The commissioners for the survey of chantries,
hospitals, &c., preparatory to their dissolution in
1545-6, certified that there were no poor widows
left in this house, but that the revenue was em-
ployed in the living of the two chantry priests,
Peter Bursall and William Browne.” It was
then described as the Hospital and Chantry of

1% Deering, Nott. 146.

™ Test, Ebor. (Surtees Soc.), ili, 319.

™% Nott. Bor. Rec. ii, 96. =

16 Stapleton, Relig. Inst. of Old Nott. 80-1.
UT Nott. Bor. Ree. iii.

178 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 137.

79 Deering, Nott. 147-8.

Our Lady at the Bridge End, and the revenues
were estimated at £11 15.1%

During the next three years the secondary
chaplain disappears, for when the commissioners
of 1548-9 arrived to carry out under Edward VI
the designs of his father, they found that there
were no poor supported, but that the lands were
wholly employed for the benefit of Peter
Bursall, the surviving senior chantry priest, or
master.}81

The hospital at this date became vested in the
Crown, and various masters or wardens obtained
successive patents to enjoy the revenues, without
fulfilling any of the former functions of the
office. At last, in 1644, one Huntingdon Plum-
tree, of the founder’s kin, obtained the patent
and made allowances of 5s. a month to certain
poor, with an additional 6¢. on New Year’s Day.
In 1650 he pulled down the old ruinous build-
ings and erected a new hospital, a brick building
of some distinction, of which Thoroton gives a
plate.8? Eventually, in 1751, the building was
made capable of accommodating thirteen widows
according to the founder’s original intention,
through the action of John Plumtree, grandson
of Huntingdon Plumtree. The present hospital
was built in 1823-4 by John Plumtree of
Fredville, Kent. The endowments then brought
in {£680 a year, out of which the thirteen
resident almswomen received £1 10s. a month,
as well as an annual ton of coals and a gown;
in addition thirty out-pensioners received £10 a
year.188

At the present time the income of the hospital
is £1,100 a year, and each of the thirteen in-
mates receives £13 10s., a ton of coals, and a
gown yearly ; there are also forty out-pensioners,
each of whom receives £13 a year.

2
Warvens oF PLumTree’s Hosprra '8%

Thomas Tawburne, 1400

John Edward

Richard Knolles, 1488

John Bradley, 1500

Robert Braidill, 1502

Edward Ersden, 1527

William Baker (or Barker), 1534
Peter Burdesall (or Bursall), 1540

35. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY
MAGDALEN, SOUTHWELL

As to the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen
without Southwell, hardly anything is known
save that the mastership was in the patronage of
the Archbishop of York. Several collations by

18 Coll. and Chant. Cert. Notts. xiii.

181 Tbid. xxxvii. 88 Thoroton, Notts. ii, 78.

3 There is a good summary of the post-Reforma-
tion history of this revived foundation in Stapleton,
Relig. Inst. of Old Nott. 83-7. 18a Ibid. 81-2.

175

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

respective archbishops to this benefice occur in
the York registers.

The earliest of these is of the year 1313,
when Henry de Hykeling, master of the South-
well Grammar School,'** acolyte, was appointed
warden of the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen
extra Southwell.1®

An exchange was effected in 1361 between
Richard de Otteringham, prebendary of Parva
Pipe, Lichfield, and Henry de Barton, warden of
the Southwell Hospital.1°@

On 30 October 1399 an exchange was
effected between Alexander Herll, warden of
St. Giles Hospital, Little Maldon, and Robert
Manfield, warden of St. Mary Magdalen’s
Hospital, Southwell.3°

Roger de Newbold was collated to this
wardenship in 1456.18

From the relevant entry in the Valr of 1534
it would appear that this small mediaeval hos-
pital, like the majority of its fellows throughout
England, had by that time ceased to do any
service for the poor or infirm, and simply found
a salary for a master or chaplain. The clear
annual value was but 445. 11d.,and the chaplain,
one John Bulle, was also one of the vicars choral
of the collegiate church of Southwell in receipt
of a stipend of £7 4s. 844.1%

The 1545-6 commissioners of Henry VIII
made the following enigmatical entry with
regard to this hospital, of which apparently only
the chapel survived :—

‘The Chapelle called Marie Magdaleyn
Chappell in Estthorppefeldes in the parisshe of
Southewell by whome or to what intente and
purpose ytt was founded no man answerithe.’

The commissioners of 1547 also left the
question of the founder of ‘the frechapell called
Mawdeleyn capell’ unsolved, but stated its
intent to be the support of a chaplain to sing
divine service. The name of the incumbent
was unknown, and the clear value was returned
as 455. 644.1"

36. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. LEONARD,
STOKE

Much confusion has been made by Thoroton,
Tanner, and others between the hospital of
St. Leonard, Newark, and the hospital of the
like dedication at Stoke juxta Newark. It is,
however, certain that there were two separate
establishments, and it may safely be assumed that

Tt may be noted that this is the earliest extant
reference to the Southwell Grammar School.

*S Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 240.

1 Tbid. 6969, fol. 51.

"7 Pat. 1 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 36,

'Ss Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 46.

™ Cert. Coll. and Chant. Notts. xiii, 40.

a Thid. xxxvii, 4.

both were primarily intended for lepers. Tanner's
statement !°! that the Stoke Hospital is men-
tioned in Ralph d’Aincourt’s foundation charter
of Thurgarton Priory, though often repeated,
goes beyond the warrant of the text ; all that is
therein stated as to this place has reference to a
charge of 105. infirmis de Stokes.

Several of the references given in Tanner and
repeated in Dugdale to rolls and records pertain
to the Newark Hospital, but the following relate
to Stoke.

In 1315 licence was granted for the alienation
in mortmain to the master of the hospital of St.
Leonard, Stoke by Newark, by Henry de St. Lis
of 10} acres of land in Elston and Stoke, and by
William le Venur of 3 acres of land in the same
towns, and by Henry de Sibthorpe of 1 a. 33 .,
also in the same towns.1*%

In 1332 William de Melton, Archbishop of
York, sanctioned a reordination of this hospital
(founded originally to further the worship of God
and to sustain the poor), as requested by John
Chanson, the master, Robert de Bilbrough and Ro-
bert de Donham, chaplains, and Simon de Botels-
ford, clerk, the brethren of the hospital. These
officials of the hospital had at that time, through
exertion among their friends, increased the en-
dowments by 40 acres of land and 30s. in rents,
for the celebrating of sixty masses annually by
the chaplains or brother associates ; thirty of these
masses on the principal feasts, and the other
thirty during Lent. In recompense for this
trouble the master, or whoever celebrated these
masses, was to receive 55. out of the rent of a
certain tenement in the town of Stoke.1%

In August 1332 licence was obtained for the
alienation of various small plots of land to the
hospital of the yearly value of 10s.!% There
was a further alienation of other small plots of
the annual value of 135. 4d. in 1339,!°° and
again in 1347 of others worth 135. 6d. a year.1”

Richard II in 1392 licensed the alienation by
Thomas Angle, clerk, and Alice Porter of a
messuage and half an acre of land in Stoke, and
by John Coney and Alice his wife of another
messuage in the same place, to the master and
brethren of St. Leonard’s Hospital, Stoke by
Newark, in full satisfaction of a licence granted
them by the late king to acquire lands, tenements,
or rents to the yearly value of 6 marks,!%

A grant was made in 1477 by Edward IV to
Laurence Duckworth, rector of Iden (Sussex), of
the mastership of the Stoke Hospital, which was

191 Notitia, Notts. xx.

™ Dugdale, Mon. vi, 191.

™ Pat. 8 Edw. IL, pt. ii, m. 8.

™ York Epis. Reg. Melton, fol. 378. Cited in
fall in Mon. vi, 733.

™ Pat. 7 Edw. III, pt. ii, m. 23.

Pat. 13 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 16.

7 Pat. 21 Edw. III, pt. i, m. 23%

™ Pat. 16 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 2.

RELIGIOUS HOUSES

in the king’s gift by reason of the custody of the
lands of Francis Lord Lovell, a minor, on an
exchange of benefices with Richard Sharpuls.'%

At the time of taking the Valr of 1534 it
appeared that the prior and convent of Thur-
garton paid yearly 24s. to the master of Stoke
Hospital for certain tenements in that town, and
also a further annual sum of 165s. in lieu of fifteen
cart-loads of wood.”

The commissioners of 1545-6 reported of the
‘Spittle of St. Leonard and St. Anne in Stoke,’
that it had been founded by the ancestors of the
Lyndecortes ‘ for the relief of poore people and
now the Kinge is patron by reason of the
attainder of the late Lord Lovell.’ The annual
value was declared to be £8 135., and the income
for the support of three poor people and for the
repair of the hospital and property ; but at that
time there were only two poor women resi-
dent.

The commissioners, however, of Edward VI
two years later returned the income as £10 195.

1 Pat. 16 Edw. IV, pt. ii, m. 13.

3° Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 151.
*01 Chant. and Coll. Cert. Notts. xiii, 13.

and stated that the whole of it went to the then
master, William Burden, who held ‘other great
livings,’ °°

The hospital was suppressed by Edward VI,
but refounded by Philip and Mary.” It was
again suppressed under Elizabeth, and the site
and lands were granted in 1576 to John Mersh
and Francis Greneham.”4

Masters oF STOKE Hospirar ?%

John Chanson, 1332

Nicholas Wymbysh, resigned 1399
Hugh Hanworth, 1399

Edmund Chaterton

Robert Sharpuls, resigned 1477
Laurence Duckworth, 1477

William Burdon, occurs 1535, 1547”

202 Ibid. xxxvil.

08 Pat. 5 & 6 Phil. and Mary, pt. v, m. 13.
4 Tanner, Notitia, Notts. xx.

5 Dugdale, Mon. vi, 735.

36 Valor Eccl. v, 189.

07 Chant. and Coll. Cert. Notts. xxxvii.

2 177 23

SCHOOLS

INTRODUCTION

OTTINGHAMSHIRE ranks high
among English counties in the
amount of its provision for secon-
dary education. In spite of its
having been in the Middle Ages

largely forest, and even the chief church of its
chief town reputed as the scene of incursions and
alarms by the fabled Robin Hood, in meeting
which the sheriff of the county invariably came
off second best, its education was not neglected.
No less than three of its existing schools can
produce documentary evidence of their existence
in the 14th century and earlier. It is practically
certain that Southwell Grammar School, and
reasonably probable that Nottingham High School,
existed before the Conquest, while Newark School
no doubt dated from the time when the town
became a ‘new work’ of great magnitude.
There were, apparently, a great many more
grammar schools in pre-Reformation times which
have perished without leaving a discoverable
trace of their existence.

It will be seen in the history of Southwell
Grammar School that the earliest known statutes
of Southwell Minster witness to the existence of
unknown schools in places where their existence
has never even been suspected. For one of these
statutes, made in 1248, forbids schools being
held on the prebends or possessions of the
canons except according to the custom of York,
to which diocese, until 1837, Nottinghamshire
belonged : ‘Item, quod non teneantur scole de
grammatica vel logica infra prebendas canoni-
corum nisi secundum consuetudinem Ebor.’
This custom brought the schools under the
jurisdiction of the chancellor of the minster (not
of the diocese), so that no one could keep a
school without his licence ; and then he used to
appoint a master for three years only, with
power of extension for a fourth, and the master
was necessarily an M.A. Schools on the pre-
bends of the canons can hardly have been very
rare when we find them thus the subject of
statute. Yet of none have we any knowledge,
except of one in the 14th century at Dun-
ham.

In 1351 Hugh son of Robert Payn (Paganus)

! Cornelius Brown, Hist. of Newark, ii, 176.

of Upper Laneham quitclaimed to John of
Nagenby of Dunham on Trent all the right
which he had in all the lands and tenements
which belonged to Robert le Taillour, formerly
master of the Grammar School of Dunham, in
the towns and fields of ‘Dunham, Wystone,
Derletone, Draytone, and Ragenhille.’

In 1472 there will be found in the history of
Nottingham Grammar School mention of a rival
grammar school at Wollaton, restricted by the
chapter of Southwell in virtue of their jurisdic-
tion as ordinary over all schools in Nottingham-
shire to 26 ‘boys and men.”?

We shall see under Southwell Grammar
School when we come to Elizabethan times, and
the licensing of schoolmasters was again for a
season rigorously enforced, mention of several
other schools in the Liberty of Southwell, at
Caunton and Bingham, and elsewhere.”” Whether
they were descendants of ancient grammar schools,
or more modern schools of a private adventure
type, there is nothing to show. As the ancient
endowment of Southwell Grammar School itself
seems only to have been £2 a year, which was
not increased with the diminution of the value
of money, it seems probable that if the schools on
the outlying prebends were endowed they died
of inanition when the value of money fell; and
they had no secondary resources, like the chan-
tries or vicar-choralships of Southwell Minster,
to supplement them.

It is perhaps the case that these schools were
not endowed at all, but depended solely on
tuition fees for their support. When the move-
ment for the foundation of grammar schools
sufficiently endowed to be free grammar schools
—free, that is, from tuition fees—began under
Henry VI, and, partially stopped by the Wars of
the Roses, was resumed with accelerated force
during the reign of Henry VII and the later
Tudors, Nottinghamshire seems to have enjoyed
its share of such foundations. Besides East Ret-
ford Grammar School, the history of which is
separately given, we hear of several others which
came to an untimely end.

About 1530 a grammar school was founded
at Kneesall. By will,? 4 March 1527-8, John

3 Infra. > Infra.
3 Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), v, 240, from Reg. Test.
Ebor. x, 524.

179

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Chapman, notary public, citizen and mercer of
York, ‘count palatine of the holy palace of the
Lateran,’ and registrar of Cardinal Archbishop
Wolsey for York diocese and city, ‘born in the
parsonage of Kneesall,’ provided that a fit chap-
lain to celebrate mass and other divine offices at
the altar of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of
schoolboys, in the parish church of Kneesall,
should be erected and newly established to pray
for his soul and the souls of his parents, and his
nephew, William Clairburgh, doctor of either
laws (and also canon of Southwell, Lincoln,
Howden, Hemingbrough, and St. Sepulchre’s,
York), and the last two archbishops. He directed
his feoffees of lands in Kneesall, Ampton, and
Allerton in Sherwood, and in Foggathorpe,
Escrick, and North Dalton in Yorkshire, to con-
vert the income to the use of his chantry.

Evidence? taken after the dissolution of
chantries shows that there was duly ‘erected one
chantry and one scholehouse in Kneesall and he
that was the chantry priest was also the schole-
master.” The chantry priest was Mr. Cleg-
borowe, born at Southwell, the son of a mercer.
He sang mass in the chantry choir, commonly
on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, and con-
tinued chantry priest and schoolmaster there for
about sixteen years, when he went north to a
better preferment. After him Mr. Baxter kept
the school, but had not the chantry. Bartholo-
mew Truswell said that as a young man he led
sandstone and wood for building the school and
the priest-schoolmaster’s lodgings, of two or
three chambers, built of sandstone. Baxter only
taught the school when the plague was at
Newark. The school was then pulled down,
and none maintained there since. Among those
educated at the school were Sir William Mering,
Mr. Thomas Markham, and Mr. Lee of South-
well.

In a somewhat similar way the chantry at
Mattersey was either founded or used as a
grammar-school endowment. This foundation
is described by the Chantry Commissioners of
1546 ° as follows :—

The Chauntrie of Mattersey, so named in the
Booke of the t1oths. Nevertheles Robert Buttie,
Stipendarie prieste there, Deposithe vppon his othe
that the same is no Chauntrie, butt Certeyn landes
gyven by diuerse men, as apperithe by Dedes of
Feoffmente, to Fynde A prieste for helpinge of the
vicare there and to teach children, beinge no founda-
cion therof nor Donatyve perpetuale, butt a prieste
to singe att the will of the parissheners.

(The yerlye valewes, accordynge to the boke of the
tenthes] £4 65. 82.

(The yerlye valewes as now svrveyed &c.] £4 105. 3.
clere, besides 2s. 2¢. in Rente resolute to diuers per-

‘ Brown, Hist. of Netar&, ii, 178.
for the document is not given.

* Leach, Engl, Sch. at the Refirmatisn, 161, from
Chant. Cert. 13, no. 29.

The reference

sons, which is imployed to the lyvinge of Roberte
Buttie, stipendarye pryste there. .
The same is not voide nor hathe anye mancion.
There is neither chalis, plate, goodes, nor orna-
mentes to the same belonginge, butt a vestment of
Grene satten of Briggis with an olde alb of smale
valewe, by the othe of the said incombente.

The later abstracts of the certificates say
curtly :—

A Chauntrie within the parish Churche there.

Founded to Fynde a priest to helpe the Vicar And
to teache Children, £4 10s. 4¢.°

A Chauntrie within the parishe church.

Founded to finde a priest to helpe the vicar and to
teache Children, £4 105. 34.’

The Court of Augmentations must, however,
have held that the school was not obligatory
by the original foundation. For by the Con-
tinuance Warrant issued 20 July 1548 under
a section of the Chantries Act providing for the
continuance of payments to preachers, school-
masters, and the poor, though two houses belonging
to the chantry of John the Baptist, held rent-free
by two almsfolk, were continued to them, no
mention is made of the school, which would
otherwise have been continued with a salary
charged on the Crown revenues of the county
equal to the net income previously enjoyed.

This school therefore perished as a result of
the Chantries Act of Edward VI, which pur-
ported to take the chantry property from super-
stitious uses, and apply it to pious uses, such
as the maintenance of grammar schools. On
the other hand it will be seen that the inhabi-
tants of Retford bought back some chantries,
though not those of Retford itself, which
they had used for their grammar school, and
which form the endowment of the present school ;
while at Mansfield a chantry or stipendiary
priest’s property seems to have been actually
diverted for the first time after the Dissolution
from superstitious uses to a grammar school,
though not till the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Mansfield seems to be the only existing grammar
school in Nottinghamshire which was founded
in those Tudor times, which have been so
erroneously credited with the creation of English
schools. ‘The next foundation is attributable to
that much maligned period of the Interregnum.
The grammar school at Elston was provided for by
the will of a former rector, Laurence Pendleton,
and decreed to be founded by the Court of
Chancery in 1614, though it was not actually
founded till 6 February 1652. Tuxford Grammar
School, founded after the Restoration, in 1669, was
better provided for, and was apparently a gram-
mar school. At Bulwell Free School, founded
by George Strelley in the same year, the school-
master had only ‘all revenues which were on

. Chant. Cert. 95, no. 8 (Leach, op. cit. 170).
"Ibid. 96, no. 50 (Leach, op. cit. 171).

180

SCHOOLS | v

or should be thereafter settled upon it to the
value of 20 nobles (£6 13s. 4d.) a year, of
which the house and close of ground whereon
the house stood were estimated at 7 nobles, out
of which the said schoolmaster was to allow
6s. 8d. for entertaining the governor and assis-
tants.’ Four acres and a cottage was the whole
endowment beyond the schoolhouse and garden,
and was worth in 1835 only {15 a year.

The upward limit of number set by the
founder was, however, only 30, though he was
to instruct ‘such of the scholars as were capable
in the Latin tongue and upwards,’ until they
should be fit for the university if their parents or
friends should desire it, and be able to maintain
them there.’ But the children were likewise
to be taught to write and read written hand,
and to cipher and cast accounts, viz. to be
taught in arithmetic, till they should attain the
five first rules therein, i.e. as far as rule of
three, but not fractions. This founder, how-
ever, can hardly have seriously contemplated a
grammar school, and he seems to have hoped
only for birds of passage as masters, as he pro-
vided that the schoolmaster should ‘engage to
continue in the free school for 5 years at least.’

Yet we find so late as 1688 John Sampson
founding by deed, 26 March 1688-9, the year
of the ‘Glorious revolution,’ a free grammar
school at South Leverton, and thinking {20a
year enough endowment for a new foundation
of that kind, and, unfortunately, giving that, not
in lands producing that rental, but in the form
of a fixed rent-charge of £20 a year issuing out
of his own lands in the parish. The uses of
this £20 he declared by will of 16 September
1691. Reciting that he had erected certain
buildings and tenements for a free grammar
school and for a convenient habitation for a
schoolmaster, for the teaching of the youth and
children of the inhabitants of South Leverton to
read English, and further also to teach and in-
struct in Latin and Greek, he proceeded to es-
tablish a governing body of eight trustees, headed
by Sir Thomas Parkyns, with four neighbouring
parsons to assist them to manage the property,
elect the masters, act as visitors, and reform abuses.
He also showed by the rules and regulations
he laid down, that he really contemplated a bona-
fide grammar school, though it was to perform
the functions of an elementary school as well.
For the master was to be a graduate of Oxford
or Cambridge and Master of Arts if it may
be, or otherwise an orthodox minister or preacher
of God’s Word; he was not to hold any
ecclesiastical living further than within the
parish, and was to teach reading, English, Latin,
and Greek gratuitously (thus showing what
he thought a free grammar school to mean)
to the children of South Leverton. A rather

® The upwards includes Hebrew.

exceptional requirement, which has, however,
parallels elsewhere about this time, is that ¢ female
children be not admitted.’ This is one among
several indications that the female sex were then
beginning to intrude on the male monopoly of
the grammar schools. Probably the school was
intended to be of the type of the old parish
schools of Scotland, where ‘stickit ministers ’
taught Latin and Greek to any stray clever lad
there might be, and he was helped to the
university. But for common folk it was just an
elementary school. At South Leverton it had
become customary to appoint the vicar as master,
but by 1835 he had devolved his duties on
an usher, and the founder’s rules were honoured
by breach in every particular, as only reading was
taught free, 2d. a week being charged for the
other two R’s; girls, too, were admitted, and
paying scholars from other parishes.

The mention of Latin in the foundation of
schools seems, however, to have been a sort of
incantation, the repetition of a formula devoid of
any realmeaning. Thusat Walkeringham, Robert
Woodhouse, who founded a school by will,
19 May 1719, giving {15 a year rent-charge
as endowment, directed it should be paid to a
schoolmaster ‘to teach and instruct in the English
and Latin tongues, and in writing and arithme-
tic, the children of the inhabitants of the town.’
The owner of his lands, with consent of four
inhabitants, was to appoint or displace the master,
and the vicar was expressly to have no authority
in such election or displacing, nor was he to be
master except with the consent of all the inhabi-
tants of the town. A bonus was offered to tempt
a master to stay four years. He was to teach
freely, without demanding or requiring any re-
ward or payment beyond the endowment. The
founder was a very arbitrary person. No persons
were to have the benefit of the school that
should endeavour to keep up the feast of Walk-
eringham in the harvest time, which, in the
donor’s judgement, tended much tc the in-
convenience of the town ; nor such persons as
should oppose the majority of the town in
making good orders for the good government of
the town; nor such poor persons as should beg,
or work abroad when there should be work
for them in the said town, and should refuse
to be content with common wages. We can
hardly imagine a beggar’s children attending a
grammar school, even if it was free.

Latin appears, too, in the rather exceptional
form of foundation which took place at Sutton
Bonnington. The then rector, Charles Livesay,
with Jane and Charles Parkyns, the two principal
landowners, and 133 other persons, covenanted
under their hands and seals, by deed of 1 July
1718, to pay the sums set opposite their names,
and the rector covenanted to employ {100
in erecting a schoolhouse and endowing it.
The school was declared ‘to be for ever free

181

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

only for the child or children of such sub-
scribers thereunto who then were or thereafter
should be inhabitants of the parishes of St.
Michael and St. Anne in Sutton alias Sutton
Bonnington.’ The total subscriptions amounted
to {111 135. 6d., besides ‘the ground whereon
the school is to be built’ given by Charles Par-
kyns, which is recited in a later deed as ‘ given
for a Free School.’ Henry and William Tate,
however, actually found the money for building
the school, so the subscriptions of £111 135. 6d.,
with £100 given by the rector, were applied in
buying lands for the endowment of it, some
29 acres at Barrow on Soar. These were con-
veyed by deeds of 8 and g April 1725 to trus-
tees, for ‘a schoolmaster that should be well
qualified to teach children to read, write, and cast
accounts, and the Latin tongue, for the use of the
children of the inhabitants.’ If this school ever
was higher than elementary or really taught
Latin, long before 1829 it had ceased to be free
or to be anything but elementary, and it has
remained an elementary school ever since.

This was the last attempt at a grammar school.
Subsequent founders frankly founded elementary
schools as some previous ones had done. No
addition was made to the secondary schools of
the county for another 150 years. Not, indeed,
that no addition was wanted. But a blight
seems to have fallen on nearly all public secondary
schools, except the greatest, about the middle of
the 18th century. The causes of this are very
obscure. One cause was the growth of dissent
among the prosperous trading and mercantile
classes, accompanied by adevelopmentof exclusive-
ness in the Church of England, so that while the
Church monopolized the governing bodies and
excluded all who would not repeat the Church
Catechism, the schools were left to the upper and
lowest classes. With the development of means
of communication the upper classes flocked more
and more to the great public schools, so that
eventually the free grammar schools became the
refuge of the destitute and a few clergymen’s,
lawyers’, and doctors’ sons. Private schools
took the middle classes. Moreover, religious
dissent was accompanied by educational dis-
sent. A profound disbelief in a classical educa-
tion overspread the middle classes, and it seems
to have been amply justified by classics as taught
in most local grammar schools. They would
not teach the new subjects, and deadness had
overspread the old. Moreover, in most cases the
pay of the masters had not been increased with
the pay of other professions, Larzely owing
to the misfeasance or apathy of governing bodies,
the endowments were stationary, and the remedy
of proper tuition fees was not tried or was declared
illegal, while the buildings were decrepit and
long out of date. From some or all of these
causes, the decay of the ancient schools was
almost universal. In Nottinghamshire the decay

and decadence were most marked in the 19th
century. Nottingham and Newark were reduced
to a position little above elementary schools ; East
Retford and Mansfield were actually in abeyance ;
and Southwell, which managed to retain a certain
status until 18.40, sank to the same condition when
practically deprived of endowment by the with-
drawal of the adventitious aid of subsidiary clerical
ofices in the minster. Revival came in the
second half of the 19th century, after the reform
of municipalities and other local governments
and the removal of religious disabilities had had
time to make themselves felt. The liberal move-
ment penetrated the sphere of education. As in
ancient times, the universities were the first to
feel its effects, which culminated in the Univer-
sities Commission Act of 1854; the great public
schools next, in the Public Schools Act of
1863; and, finally, the other public or grammar
schools in the Endowed Schools Act of 1869.
Before those Acts were actually passed the agita-
tion for them produced some reform, The en-
dowments were, so far as circumstances allowed,
restored to their proper uses. Nottingham was
the first of Nottinghamshire schools to reform
itself by a private Act of Parliament in 1860.
Schemes of the Court of Chancery after long
delays restored their life to East Retford and
Mansfield. The doors were thrown open to
Dissenters. Finally, schemes under the Endowed
Schools Acts passed by the Endowed Schools Com-
missioners, the Charity Commissioners, and the
Board of Education, by reconstituting the govern-
ing bodies on the old principle of representative
government, sweeping away clerical restrictions,
frankly recognizing the necessity of tuition fees,
modernizing the curricula, and, above all, by
substituting an elastic code of regulations, capable
of easy alteration from time to time by amend-
ing schemes, for the cast-iron will of the founder,
have placed the schools in a better position to
adapt their work to the needs of the day than
they have ever previously enjoyed. The result
is that never in the history of education have the .
secondary schools of Nottinghamshire been fuller :
or more prosperous than now, and never have they
more deserved to beso. So far from reform having
deadened private beneficence as some prophesied,
it has called it to life again. The large number
of exhibition foundations at Nottingham, and
the gifts to Nottingham University College, are
notable examples. But the most remarkable
instance in the county probably is the new
spacious site and ample playing-fields, and half
the total cost of rebuilding on the new site the
Magnus Grammar School at Newark, given by
Mr. T. Earp, a Nonconformist and a former
Liberal M.P. Having made his own fortune in
business, he has thus restored the fortunes of the
school founded by an eminent Churchman who
made his fortune out of ecclesiastical preferments
nearly four centuries ago. Other developments

182

SCHOOLS

arising out of the improved administration of old
foundations are the girls’ grammar school at
Mansfield and the girls’ school at Newark, still
in embryo, and the Brunts’ Technical School
at Mansfield. Modern corporate activity has
shown itself in the Nottingham High Pavement
Secondary School, descended from an old British
school founded in 1788 and transferred to the
Nottingham School Board in 1891, enlarged
into a higher-grade elementary school in 1870
and later developing into an Organized Science
School, and in 1907 still further exalted by
the City Council, as the local education authority
under the Education Act, 1902, into a secondary
school for some 600 boys and girls. <A per-
haps still more modern enterprise is that of
the Nottingham Girls’ High School in Arboretum
Street, founded by one of the latest specimens
of corporate activity, the Girls’ Public Day
School Company, Limited, lately converted into
an endowed company, and the school into an
endowed school, where some 300 girls receive
the highest form of secondary education, and go
forth to compete, not unsuccessfully, with men
in triposes and class lists for all subjects at Oxford
and Cambridge.

SOUTHWELL MINSTER GRAMMAR
SCHOOL

It is through the connexion of Nottinghamshire,
at some unknown, or at least doubtful, date, with
the. Northumbrian kingdom, instead of the
Mercian kingdom, with which geographically it
would seem more connected, that the history of
Southwell Grammar School has been so well pre-
served. For at Southwell the bishop of the
Northumbrian kingdom, the Archbishop of York,
had one of the four cathedrals or bishops’ stools
of his enormous diocese, which included in the
11th century Lincolnshire, and until the middle
of the 19th century Nottinghamshire in addition
to Yorkshire. What Beverley Minster was to
the East Riding of Yorkshire, Southwell Minster
was to Nottinghamshire. ‘The collegiatte
churche of our Blessid ladye the Virgyn of
Sowthewelle comenly called Southwell Mynstre ’?
was according to the Chantry Commissioners of
Henry VIII ‘reputed and taken for the hed
mother churche of the towne and countie of
Nottingham, wherein is sedes archiepiscopalis, and
so allowed by the Kinges maiesties grace 3 yers
paste by an Acte of Parliamente, and the chapter
of the same churche have particuliere jurisdiccion
and is exempted ab omni archiepiscopali [jurisdic-
cione] preterquam in causis appellacionum et
negligencie. Whiche collegiate churche of
auncient tyme was founded by the righte famous
of memorye, Edgare, the Kinges maiesties most

1A. F. Leach, Engl. Schools at the Reformation, 161,
from Chant. Cert. 13, no. 40.

noble progenitor.” It has been shown by the
present writer that there is some reason to doubt
the ascription of the foundation to King Edgar?
The earliest document referring to Southwell
contained in the York chartulary,? the Liber
Albus or White Book, is a grant by ‘Eadwy
rex,’ who may or may not be intended to be
Edgar’s predecessor and brother, in 958. It is
quite likely that if the grant is genuine at all it
represents a gift by some Northumbrian king of
the name, and not the later West Saxon over-
lord. But, however that may be, it is certain
that Southwell Minster was a Saxon foundation
at least 100 years before the Norman Con-
quest, a church of secular (that is, ordinary)
canons, or clergy, like our modern cathedral
canons, who formed the Archbishop of York’s
chapter for Nottinghamshire. ‘The chapter—
originally consisting of seven canons like York
itself, a number afterwards enlarged to sixteen
—exercised in the archbishop’s stead the
archbishop’s ordinary jurisdiction, though the
Archdeacon of Nottingham had his stall not in
Southwell Minster but in York Minster, and an
appeal lay from the chapter to the archbishop.
In virtue of their jurisdiction as ordinary the
chapter had control of the schools of the county,
just as that of Lincoln had over those of Lin-
colnshire, that of York in Yorkshire, and that of
Beverley in the liberty of Beverley. Just as the
chancellor of these churches exercised this control
on behalf of the chapters, so the canon or pre-
bendary of Normanton, a church and parish
close to Southwell, as chancellor of the minster
exercised the control in Nottinghamshire. No
doubt he had originally taught theschool himself.
But there are no records at Southwell earlier than
the second quarter of the 13th century, by which
time everywhere the title and work of school-
master had given place to the title of chancellor,
and the work of a legal adviser and the teaching
of theology only remained to him. The first men-
tion of schools in the extant records of Southwell
is in connexion with a dispute about Newark
Grammar School in 1238, related at length in the
history of that school. A marginal note on the
entry says: ‘Since the collations of grammar
schools throughout the whole archdeaconry of
Nottingham belong wholly and solely to the pre-
bendary of Normanton in the collegiate church
of Southwell, as chancellor in the same church,’
the particular agreement set out as to Newark,
which derogated from the right of collation of
the prebendary of Normanton, was bad. The
next mention of schools in relation to Southwell

> Mem. of Southwell Minster (Camd. Soc. 1891),
new ser. xix, xx, no. 48.

° Dugdale, Mon. vi, 1312; Kemble, Cod. Dip/.
472. The deed as printed purports to be witnessed
by Edgar, the king’s brother. But in the original
MS. this witness is not Edgar, but ‘ Eagelr frater
regis.”

183

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

is ten years later. On 26 March 1248, at a
general convocation of the canons, statutes were
made dealing with various matters, chiefly of
internal economy. The second ordinance and
statute ran: ‘also, that schools of Grammar and
Logic shall not be held inthe prebends of canons,
except according to the custom of York.’ The
fact that grammar schools were held in the out-
lying prebends of the minster raises an irresistible
presumption that in the mother town itself of
Southwell there was a school. The grammar
school and the logic school were generally one
and the same, except at places like universities ;
logic or the science of argument having been
taught in the grammar schools at least from the
age of Quintilian, who, writing his Institutes of
Rhetoric about A.D. 90, complains that grammar
schoolmasters have encroached and are daily more
and more encroaching on the sphere of the
rhetoric schools, which included dialectic, or
logic.

The custom of York we only know from the
York statutes as written down rather more than
half a century later, in 1307,‘ in which it is
said the chancellor ‘who anciently was called
schoolmaster, to him it pertains to collate to
grammar schools, but he ought to present to the
school of York a regent master in arts, of whose
proficiency there is hope, who according to the
ancient custom of the church shall hold it for
three years, and no longer, except by grace for
one year more.’ Probably the object of the
Southwell statute was to enforce that the right of
collation, i.e. of appointment, of the master in all
grammar schools belonged to the chancellor as
the officer of the chapter, not to the individual
prebendary in whose prebend the school happened
to be. In 1248 there were thirteen territorial
prebends, besides Normanton, viz. at Norwell
(three prebends), Oxton and Cropwell (two),
Woodborough, North Muskham, South Musk-
ham, Beckingham, Dunham, Halloughton and
Rampton. None of them were ever places of
any size or importance; but in mediaeval and
Elizabethan times there is evidence of schools
at Dunham, Oxton, South Muskham, and
two other places in the prebends. Unfor-
tunately Southwell has not, like York and
Lincoln, preserved all the minute books of its
chapter proceedings. Its Chapter Act Books, as
they are called, begin only in November 1469,
while those at York and Lincoln commence
at the beginning of the 14th century. So there
is no definite information about Southwell
Grammar School till after the date when the
Chapter Act Books begin. That it existed,
however, is clear from one casual mention of it
in the White Book. The chapter on 1 Septem-
ber 1413 made a charter of inspeximus of an

‘A. F. Leach, Early Yorks. ScAcsls (Yorks. Arch. Soc.
Rec. Ser. 1899), 12.

earlier deed containing the result of an inquisi-
tion taken in 1372 setting out the lands of the
various chantries founded in the minster. This
inspeximus of 1413 was witnessed among others
by Master Metham, rector of Southwell Grammar
School (‘ magistro de Metham, rectore scolarum
gramaticalium Suthwell’). The first mention
of the school in the Chapter Act Book has the
marginal note ‘Southwell Grammar School
(Scola gramaticals), and bears out the state-
ment made in the White Book that the presenta-
tion to the grammar schools belonged to the
prebendary of Normanton. For at a chapter
held on 1 December 1475° a new grammar
schoolmaster of Southwell was admitted on his
nomination.

To the Venerable the chapter of the collegiate
church of the Blessed Mary of Southwell in the
diocese of York, John Danvers, prebendary of the
prebend of Normanton in the same church, Reverence
due to such great men with honour. To the
grammar school (scolas gramaticales) of the town of
Southwell aforesaid now vacant and belonging to my
presentation in right of my prebend aforesaid, I
present to you my beloved in Christ, John Barre,
humbly and devoutly beseeching you that you will
graciously deign to admit the same John to the afore-
said school with all its rights and appurtenances, and
to do all other things which it is incumbent on you
to do in this behalf. In witness whereof I have set
my seal to these presents given at London 26 Nov.

1475.

The record proceeds: ‘After the exhibition,
inspection, and examination of which letter, the
chapter aforesaid duly and effectively admitted
the aforesaid John Barre, being fit and able in
arts and learning, at the presentation of the
aforesaid John Danvers, to the grammar school
of Southwell with all its rights and appurtenances
as has been anciently accustomed to be done.’

It will be noted that though the legal docu-
ment and entry has grammar school in the plural,
the marginal note has the word in the singular.
It was just at this epoch that the mediaeval use
of the word school in the plural was being super-
seded in common parlance by the word in the
singular. John Danvers, the prebendary, was,
like most of the canons, non-resident. At South-
well, as at Beverley and elsewhere, there were
never more than three canons resident at this
time, and often only one.

John Danvers, who was also a canon of York,
was an Oxford man, who often acted as vice-
chancellor or commissary of Thomas Chaundeler,
warden of New College, when chancellor ot
Oxford University, between 1457 and 1467.
Danvers became canon and prebendary of
Normanton 13 March 1463, and remained so
till he resigned in 1495, on a pension of Liga
year, payable at the high altar of St. Magnus the

* Leach, Mem. of Scuthtecll Minster, 29.

184

SCHOOLS

Martyr by London Bridge.
resided at Southwell.

Barre or Barry, his appointee, held office for
no less than thirty years. He was perhaps the
John Barry, elder brother of Robert Barra, called
also Barrye, doctor of decrees and Canon of York
(Osbaldwick) and Southwell (Dunham), admitted
27 August 1499, towhom the latter gave by his
will® of 4 October 1526 a legacy of 20s., while
appointing as an executor Robert Barra his
nephew, son of his brother John. ‘The ‘ custom
of York,’ of holding a schoolmastership for only
three or four years, was therefore extinct at South-
well by this time as at York itself. After the
Black Death the scarcity of masters of arts had
caused appointments to be made for life or at the
pleasure of the chapter.

Barry occurs several times in the Act Book.
The year after his appointment, on 6 May 1476,’
he appeared in chapter as plaintiff against Thomas
Button, executor of Robert Button, chaplain,
for 145. 5d. debt. He produced a chantry priest
as witness that in the chamber of another chantry
priest, William Barthorp, who also gave evidence
to the same effect, Thomas Button promised to
give him 14s. 5d. The executor was ordered to
.pay accordingly.

At the visitation of the minster by the chapter
through Mr. William Worsley, the canon resi-
dentiary, afterwards Dean of St. Paul’s, on
1 July 1478,° one of the articles of inquiry was
‘if the schoolmasters were sufficient and diligent
in their office.” The schoolmasters (magistri
scolarum) means the masters of the grammar
school and of the song school. For though there
is no direct mention of the latter school, a song
school .was of course kept, as in all great colle-
giate and cathedral churches, to teach singing to
choristers and others. As will be seen, the
Chantry Commissioners of 1546 give definite
evidence of there being one at Southwell, as
usual under the control of the precentor, while
the grammar school was under the chancellor.
As no complaint is made of the schoolmasters at
the visitation in 1478 we may conclude that
Mr. John Barre was doing his duty effectively.
All the junior members of the church were
expected to attend the grammar school. Thus
on 12 September 1483°% Richard Gurnell, a
deacon, was ‘suspended from his habit’ for
frequent quarrels with laymen, and he and
Palmer ‘and all the clerks of the Sacrist’ or
treasurer, were ordered ‘on pain of perpetual
suspension from office and benefice to attend the

He probably never

® Mem. of Southwell Minster (Surt. Soc.), 125 ; Test.
Ebor. v, 220. Mrs. Agnes Barra, widow, made her
will 26 June 1525, and mentions besides Mr. Dr.
Barra, Robert Barra, a married man, while James
Barra, priest, and Edward Barra, brothers of the
doctor, are also mentioned in the doctor’s will.

7 Leach, Mem. of Southwell Minster, 30.

8 Ibid. 39. * Thid. 45.

grammar school daily, unless there was any law-
ful impediment (quod vacent cotidie absque legi-
timo impedimento scolis gramaticalibus).’? At
the visitation in the following year this matter
was again brought up. Richard Gurnell was
complained of for playing cards with laymen
and for the quarrels and threats of murder
which arose from it, and grave complaint is
made of his and the master’s slackness.!° ‘ Note
generally. The ministers of the church do not
attend the grammar school, The Grammar
Master does not attend at the proper hours of
teaching his scholars in school ; and often gives
remedies indiscriminately to his scholars on
whole school days, so that for the time they
learn nothing, expending their parents’ substance
in vain and to no purpose; and they do not
speak Latin in school, but English.” This is an
illuminating passage about grammar schools. It
is one of many proofs that could be cited to
overthrow the assertion made by Dr. Kennedy
of Shrewsbury in support of his doctrine that
free schools did not mean free from fees, that
before the days of Edward VI schools were all
free. If this school had been free there would
have been no point in the complaint that the
boys were wasting their parents’ goods by not
learning. It is also the earliest instance known
of casual holidays, not holy days, being called
remedies, as they are in Colet’s statutes for St.
Paul’s School, by which remedies were wholly
forbidden, and as they still are at Winchester to
this day. The complaint as to not speaking
Latin in school is interesting. It was the
universal rule in grammar schools that the
boys should talk only in Latin, and the rule is fre-
quently found in school statutes, till the end of
the 17th century. Nor is this general note the
only complaint. William Norram, John Adcot,
and Robert Cook, clerks of the church, are said
‘not to frequent the grammar school scarcely in
the whole year.”, Mr. John Barre, the use of
the title showing that he was an M.A., is
specifically complained of. He ‘receives gos. a
year for teaching the grammar school,’ this time
the plural is used, ‘and does nothing for this
stipend, nor does he share any part of it with Sir
William Barthorp, who has the charge of
teaching grammar for him.’

William Barthorp, whom we saw above giving
evidence on Barre’s behalf, was probably usher
in the school. He was chantry priest of St.
John the Baptist’s chantry in 1469, and was a
very irregular attendant at the services, being

Ibid. 49. Nota generaliter. Mlinistri ecclesie
non vacant scole gramaticali. Magister Grama-
ticalis non attendit debitis horis doctrine suorum
scolarium in scola ; et quam pluries dat remedium suis
scolaribus diebus ferialibus, quod quasi ad tempus
nichil addiscunt, expendendo bona suorum parentum
frustra et inaniter ; et non locuntur Latinum in scola
sed anglicum.

2 185 24

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

warned on 23 August 1470 to keep suit of
choir better on pain of suspension. Again on
2 October 1475, and on 30 July 1478, he was
given a similar warninz, and on 6 May 1484,
when he was warned to attend on feast days
only. In 1490 he was said to say his masses
out of choir and to come to choir barely twice or
thrice a week. He had in 1476 resigned his
original chantry for Haxey’s chantry, and at
some unknown date, probably November 1503,
exchanged that again for one of the two chan-
tries of Our Lady and St. Cuthbert, founded by
Archbishop Laurence Booth ia 1479." The
chapel of this chantry, in which both Laurence
himself and his brother and predecessor as arch-
bishop, William Booth, 1452 to 1464, were
buried, was built at the south-west corner of the
church. It is probable that all through Barthorp
was acting as usher in the grammar school,
probably holding his chantries on condition of
doing so. He was much better endowed than
the master, whose usher or at all events deputy
he was, if, as seems to be the case from the entry
quoted, the grammar schoolmaster only received
£2 a year, for the chantries were worth
£3 18s. t1d. and £10 19s, 11d. The master
must therefore have derived the chief part of his
emoluments from tuition fees. He may have
had boarders. After Barthorp’s death on
3 December 1504 a rather solemn entry is made
as to the appointment of his successor. Mr.
William Fitzherbert and Thomas Fitzherbert,
the two canons residentiary, holding a chapter,
put before the assembled churchwardens, regis-
trar, and vicars choral, their title to collate to
the chantry. Then Henry Frankyshe, one of
the sixteen vicars choral, asked to be promoted
to the same according to the ordinance and
foundation of it.

They answered that his petition was just, but they
asked him to abandon his proposal this time in order
that for the common benefit and his own they might
present a fit chaplain who would be able to teach the
grammar school. For which reason Sir Henry
Frankyshe acceded to their request. And so the said
canons residentiary the same day instituted, invested,
and installed a chaplain named Sir William Babyngton,
who was sworn according to the ordinance and
foundation of the said chantries. Moreover, after his
institution and installation, on the same day in the
chapter-house, of his own free will and not under
compulsion, the said Sir William Babyngton swore on
the holy gospels, that he would undergo the burden
of teaching the grammar school, the whole time that
he held the said chantry."

In this very convenient way the endowment
of the grammar school, or of its usher, was in-
creased by the chapter who were bound to main-
tain it, without any cost to themselves. It is

4 Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), iil, 25¢.
™ Leach, Mem. Scuthseed! Minster, 177.

probable that from this time onwards the
chantry chapel was used as the grammar school.
At least it is stated to have been so used about
1784, in which year it was pulled down by the
chapter ‘because it destroyed the regularity of
the buildings’ of the minster. By a curious
coincidence,” which may have been suggested
by its previous use, the endowment of the
chantry, being a fixed rent-charge of £13 6s. 8d.
a year payable out of the archbishop’s manor of
Battersea, was after the Dissolution in 1548
granted by Edward VI as the chief part of the
endowment of Guildford Grammar School.
Afterwards by forgery Archbishop Heath regained
the endowment to Southwell Minster under
Mary, but it was restored to Guildford Gram-
mar School by Act of Parliament in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. Battersea Manor afterwards
passed to the St. Johns and then to Earl
Spencer, who still pays the rent-charge, though
it is believed that the lands out of which it
issued have been sold.

Apparently Babyngton, after his appointment
to St. Cuthbert’s chantry, did the whole work
of the school, and Barre practically retired on a
pension. For a little later, 18 January 1505-6,
the chapter decreed that Barre should pay
Babyngton 115. 8d. at Whitsuntide following
and at Martinmas another 11s. 8d. and {1 a
year afterwards. It does not appear when Barre
ceased to hold office. As we have seen, he was
probably alive in 1525, when Dr. Robert Barra
made his will. He, by the way, gave to Edward
Barra, scholar, his nephew, if he wished to
become a priest, £10 and all his grammatical
and legal books, and the course of canon law and
Abbatt on the Decretals if he wished to learn
law or canon law. Babyngton was still holder
of the chantry when on 17 August 1540 it was
surrendered by him, when the rest of the possessions
of the church were surrendered by his colleagues
and the chapter and vicars choral and other holders
of offices and endowments, to Henry VIII. So
that two masters only filled the office in the
seventy years from 1469 to the Dissolution.

Before that event took place an attempt seems
to have been made to establish in Southwell a
free school, that is, a school free from tuition
fees, the chapter school with its small endow-
ment being, as we saw from the entry of 1484,
not free, but one which cost money. Robert
Batemanson, who was seemingly one of the
household of Laurence Booth, Archbishop of
York, whose will of 28 September 1479 he
witnessed, came from Broom, near Durham, to
Southwell, in the time of the archbishop, and his
brother Roger was a vicar choral in the minster.
Robert made his will on 23 June 1512." He
had by deed of 18 June 1492 given to Hugh

” V.C.H, Surr. ii, 166-7.

Leach, Mem. Souihwell Minster, 115; cf. Test.
Ebor. iii, 250 n.

186

SCHOOLS

Clifton and others all his lands at Egmanton as
feoffees to the uses of his will. He now willed
that his feoffees should

stand and be infeoffed in the same to the use of the
most reverend fader in God Christover Baynbryg, arch-
bisshope of York, and his heires, upon condition and
to the entent that the said archbisshoppe his heires or
executours within 4 yers next. after my decesse, shall
founde a free gramer scole in Suthwell ever to endure,
paying yerly to my executors to the said scole be
founded 4o0s., And if it fortune ye said archbishoppe
his heires or executors not to provide a fre scole as is
aforsayde then I will that my sayde feoffes shall stand
and be infeoffed in the same To the use and behove
of the Prior and Convent of Thurgarton

for ninety-nine years on condition of giving to
the prior and convent of Beauvale (Bevale) a
quarter of wheat and to the Friars Observant of
Newark another quarter each year. The will
was proved 27 November 1512. It will be
noted that the term ‘free grammar school’ is
used here in English nearly half a century before
the supposed invention of the term and thing by
Edward VI, and that this gift was made in the
same year as that of Agnes Mellers at Notting-
ham, for the same purpose there. There is no
evidence seemingly at Southwell of the founda-
tion having been effected. But it must have
been. The sum of £10 a year paid by the chapter
to the school, and as will be seen continued by
the Chantry Commissioners as a charge on the
Crown revenues and paid by the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners to this day, was probably due to
this benefaction.

In 1530 Southwell received a benefaction
which had a lasting influence in preserving the
status of the school, though it was not conferred
directly on the school. ‘This was the foundation
of the Keton or Keyton scholarships and fellow-
ships at St. John’s College, Cambridge, by Dr.
John Keton, as he usually spelt himself, canon
of Salisbury. He had begun life as a chorister
of Southwell Minster, admitted’ 25 March
1479-80, and in 1492 was a chaplain at South-
well, though in what precise capacity does not
appear. By deed of 27 October, 22 Henry VIII,
1530, made between Sir Anthony Fitzher-
bert, judge of the Common Pleas, and himself
of the first part, the ‘ Chapiter’ of Southwell of
the second part, and St. John’s College, Cam-
bridge, of the third part, in consideration of
£400 (equivalent to at least £8,000) given to
the college in money, plate, and other jewels,
the college covenanted to maintain two fellows
and two ‘ disciples or schollers,’ in the same way
as the fellows and scholars of the Foundress

“4 Leach, Mem. Southwell Minster, 188.

% Ibid. 57.

6 Printed in St. Fohn’s Coll. v. Toddington, 1 Burr.
(1757), 158. Also set out in Southwell Reg. Leases,
30.

foundation, with 135. 4d. a year more to each of
the fellows, ‘over and above the wages limited
unto other fellows of the Foundress foundacion.”
These fellows and scholars were to be ‘elected
and chosen of those persons that bee or have
been quiristers of the chapiter of Southwell
aforesaid, if anie such able persons in maners
and lerninge can bee found in Southwell biffore-
said, and in default of such persons there, then of
such persons as have been queristers of the said
chapiter of Southwell, which persons be then
inhabitante or abidinge in the Universitic of
Cambrigge.? If ‘none such be founde able in
the Universitie aforesaid then . . . such persons
that shall be most singuler in maners and
lerninge of what country soever they should bee
that shall be then abidinge in the said Univer-
sitie.” Though the scholar was not bound to
have been at the grammar school in terms, in
practice he was, and this endowment proved an
attraction to the school. Even during the Com-
monwealth when ‘the chapiter of Southwell
was abolished and there were no choristers,’ we
find Samuel, son of Thomas Leeke, clerk, ‘ bred
at Nottingham under his father, who was head
master there, and some time also at Southwell
(aliquantillo etiam tempore in schola de South-
well), admitted to St. John’s 4 May 1654, while
immediately on the resumption of the college
Stephen Fothergill, of Epperstone, bred at Repton
for two years, is described as chorista Southwellensts
when admitted on 8 June 1661. So when
Charles Leeke, son of Francis Lecke, of Halam,
was admitted 7 June 1665, he is said to have
been bred at Southwell School et a choro ibidem.
He became a Keton fellow 30 October 1669.
In later years, when choristers had become of a
lower class, it became the practice for the canons
to appoint their sons or relations and friends as
choristers merely to qualify for these scholarships
and exhibitions, while not performing any duties
except on Sundays and holidays, but paying
someone else to do them.

After the surrender of the college and all the
dependent foundations in 1540 it was refounded
by an Act of Parliament in 1543. ‘This Act
enacted ‘that the colledge and church collegiate
of Southwell . . . shall stande and bee in his
hole perfecte and essentiall estate in all degrees
and in such manner and forme to all intents or
purposes, as it was or stood the first day of
June, in the 32nd yere of the reigne of our
sovereign lord the king [i.e. 1540] or at anie
time before, and shall remaine, continue and bee
for ever a perfecte bodie corporate by the name
of the chapter of the collegiate church of the
Blessed Marie the Virgine of Southwell in the
countie of Nottingham.’ All its property and
officers, including chantries and chantry priests, - -
lamps, and obits were restored. The only
difference was that the archbishop’s manor and
his rights of patronage in the appointment of the

187

canons passed to the Crown, the king being
declared founder, and expressly given the patron-
age. But the patronage of the minor minis-
ters of the church, vicars choral, chantry priests,
and the like, remained in the canons as before.

In the scheme of Henry VIII for new bishop-
rics,’ Southwell is set down as the see of a new
bishopric to be erected for Derbyshire and Notting-
hamshire. So it is clear that he always intended
to preserve it and its revenues intact, or even
augmented. The revenue of the minster is set
down at £1,003 a year, ‘of which one third
for the bishop,’ who was designated in the person
of Dr. Cocks, ex-head master of Eton. The
grammar school would have been, as in other new
cathedrals erected by Henry, an integral part
of the foundation. But the see was not estab-
lished till nearly three centuries and a half later,
when, oddly enough, its first bishop, George
Ridding, was also an ex-head master, but of
Winchester, not Eton,

Meanwhile the college has been thrice since
dissolved, in 1548, 1649, and 1848. In both
cases the grammar school survived its parent and
patron. The college was first threatened by
the Chantries Act of Henry VIII, which enabled
him, three years after he had refounded it by Act
of Parliament, to enter on it and dissolve it.
The account given by the commissioners under
that Act says that the ‘comen lands’ were worth
£33, which ‘clere Reveneux ben imployed as
well vppon the wages of the Deacons, 66s.;
Choristirs, 26s. 8d.; clerkes, 20s.; Thuribulers,
135. 4d.; who hathe no more wages to fynde
them meate and Drinke then before is sett vppon
their heddes, and also for the Relyvinge of poore
scollers thyther Resortinge for ther erudycyon
either in Grammer or songe, as for ther expenses
in hospitalitee, emongiste suche the said preben-
daries as there be resident, and partelye for the
socoure of pore people thither Resortinge, as by
the said certificate dothe appere, wherunto the
said prebendes are sworne.’ It is curious that no
sum is set down for the amount expended on
those ‘resorting for their erudition either in
grammar or song.’ The prebend of Normanton
is entered as worth clear £20 65. 8d., besides
6s. 57. for the mansion-house, after paying £4
for the wages of John Trapps the vicar choral
of the prebendary, ‘also, besides 40s. given to
the scole master of the Free Scole there’; a term
which suggests that Batemanson’s benefaction
had taken effect, and the school had been made
free. This is a crucial instance to show that a
free school did not mean free from ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, since it was wholly under the col-
lege of canons of the minster. The college was
spared by Henry VIII, only to fall under
Edward VI. The report of the commissioners
under the new Chantries Act, which abolished

Strype, Eccl. Mem. ii, 406.

HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

all colleges except cathedrals, university colleges,
and Windsor, shows the two schools of grammar
and song going onas before. For the latter there
was paid out of the common lands, worth gross
some £48 a year, the income of which was
divided among the residentiary canons, to ‘the
master of the queristers, 20s.’ The former was
paid out of the income of the prebend of Nor-
manton, worth £27 a year. ‘Wages yerely
paid unto the Scholemastre there, 40s.’ The
people of Southwell made a great effort to keep
the minster as a parish church, and also the
school. Six persons, ‘churchewardens of the
sayde parishe churche of Southwell within the
said collegiate churche,’ presented that ‘ within
the said towne of Southwell and within 3 vil-
lagies thereunto adionyng called East thropp
(Easthorpe) West thropp and Normanton are
2000 crystened soules’” and ‘in the parishe and
sooke 2000 christened soules and more,’ and the
vicar to serve all these had only 20s. from the
prebend of Normanton.

And thei present that the said parishe churche of
Southwell standeth in the mydle of the Shere, ac-
compted as a chief Churche, wherin ys and hath ben
kept a Gramer scole most apte for the same (tyme out
of mynd), And towardes the mayntaynaunce therof
ys given 40s. by yere out of the Prebendary of
Normanton.

And that, in Respect of the Great nombre of
people perteyning to the saide Sooke and Royaltie,
there hathe ben 16 prebendes, and no_ preacher
charged for the same. In consideracion of the pre-
mysses and other moste vrgent not here alledged, We,
the poore Inhabitauntes and parishioners, the Kinges
maiesties tennauntes there, Do not onely make our
requeste that our parishe churche maye stande, and to
haue therin suche preachers apte and mete to enstructe
vs our Dueties towardes God and our king, as his
maiestie shall appointe, But also that our Grammer
scole maie also stande with suche stipende as apper-
teyneth the like, Wherin our poore youth maie be
enstructed, and that also by the resorte of their
parentes we, his Graces poore Tennauntes and inhabi-
tauntes there, maic have some relief wherby we
shalbe the better able to serue his Grace at tyme
appoynted.

Partly on this representation the people of
Southwell secured the continuance of the minster
as the parish church. The commissioners under
the Chantries Act for the continuance of schools,
preachers, and curates of necessity, found ‘that
a Grammer Scole hath been contynuallie kept in
Southwell aforesaid with the revenues of the late
college of Southwell, whiche Scole is very mete
and necessarie to contynue Wee therefore...
have assigned and appointed that the said Scole
in Southwell aforesaid shall contynue and that
the Scolemaster there for the tyme beyng shall
yerelie have for his wages £10.’ By the same
order {20 was assigned for the ‘stipende and
lyving’ of the parish vicar, one of the canons,
John Adams, being appointed vicar, while £5 each

188

SCHOOLS

was assigned to two vicars choral appointed
assistant curates. Accordingly, the accounts
of the Receiver-General of the Court of Aug-
mentations of the Revenues of the Crown for
Nottinghamshire show ‘ And in like cash by the
said receiver paid to John Lowthe master of the
grammar school (scole grammaticalis) in South-
well from ancient time at £10 a year, by virtue
of the warrant aforesaid,’ ie. the warrant of
Sir Walter Mildmay and Robert Kelway for
continuance of the school. We thus learn the
name of the master who presumably was master
from the time of the refoundation of the church.
He may be identified with John Lowthe, scholar
of Winchester 1534, of New College 1540, in
which year he took his B.A. degree, and a fellow
there till 1543. He afterwards became chan-
cellor of the diocese of Gloucester, rector of
Gotham, Canon of Wells and of Lincoln, vicar
of St. Mary’s, Nottingham, and Archdeacon of
Nottingham, which promotion he held when he
told John Foxe, the martyrologist, some weird
and, it must be admitted, libellous stories against
the warden of New College, Dr. London, in the
early days of the Reformation, when he was
trying to suppress the reformers. Lowthe was
paid until Michaelmas 1552,!% when he was
succeeded by Henry Rathebye.” In 1553 the
money was not paid, but on application to the
Court of Exchequer,’ and production of the
warrant, it was held by the Court that the
amount was payable to the master of the grammar
school for the time being, and, 12 November
1554, was ordered to be paid, together with
a year’s arrears, to Henry Rabye (sic) now
master of the said grammar school. He con-
tinued to be paid till Michaelmas 1555.7
After that year the payment cannot be traced.
While the school was thus going on the col-
legiate establishment was in abeyance; the
prebendaries, vicars choral, chantry priests, and
even the choristers, having been pensioned off.
In 1553 9 prebendaries, 13 vicars choral, 7 chan-
try priests, 2 deacons, and 6 choristers, were
still in receipt of their pensions; while the
vicarage was served by Robert Salvine and
William Allerne at stipends of £6 and £4 a
year apiece. The bulk of the property had
been granted to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick,
afterwards Duke of Northumberland, and by
him to John Beaumont, Master of the Rolls,
who, being convicted of fraud and misfeasance
in his office, ‘conveyed and assured them by de-

18 P.R.O. Land. Rev. Rec. Accts. 2 & 3 Edw. VI,
bdle. go, m. 29.

9 Ibid. 3 & 4 Edw. VI, bdle. 89; 4 & 5 Edw.
VI, bdle. 91.

” Ibid. 5 & 6 Edw. VI, bdle. 75, m. 24.

1 Exch. L.T. Memo. R. Mich. 1 & 2 Phil. and
Mary, m. 2.

2 Ibid. 1 & 2 toz & 3 Phil. and Mary, bdle. 66,
m. 17.

benture fine or otherwise’ to King Edward VI
‘for the discharge and satisfaccion of divers
great sums of money wherein the same John
Beaumont was indebted to the said late king.’
The title of the Crown against Beaumont was
confirmed by Act of Parliament, 4 & 5 Philip
and Mary, cap. 1, sec. 7. The site and precinct
and the rest of the land had remained in the
Crown. During the Roman reaction under
Mary, in the same year which witnessed the
restoration of Westminster Abbey, 1557, thanks
no doubt to the action of Nicholas Heath, Arch-
bishop of York and chancellor, the canons and
chapter of the minster re-entered on the church
and their houses, and retook possession of the lands.
An information was then laid on 9 April 1558,
by Edward Gryffyn (Attorney-General v. Chap-
ter of Southwell), for trespass on lands belonging
to the Crown in virtue of the Chantries Act.
The information was no doubt collusive ; for the
Attorney-General himself argued that the college
had not been in the actual and real possession of
Henry VIII. After elaborate pleadings the
Court of Exchequer gave judgement ™ in favour
of the chapter on the specious and untenable
plea that owing to the refoundation of Henry
VIII by Act of Parliament the college had not
come to the Crown under the Chantries Act,
and that the grant to the Earl of Warwick and
the subsequent escheat to the Crown were void.
By Inspeximus Charter, 20 June 1558," all
this was recited and confirmed. So the minster
was re-established in law as it had already ** been
in fact. It was, however, constantly harassed in
the title to its lands till a fresh charter and grant
were obtained from James I, 26 July 1604.

The Chapter Act Books begin again at
Michaelmas 1558. There is, however, no
mention of the school in them for some thirteen
years. Presumably Henry Rathbye or Raby
carried it on continuously. On 1 March
1571-2 injunctions were given by Edmund,
Archbishop of York, after a visitation. One
of these injunctions 7° is—

Item 10. Item we do injoyne, that a dewe
regarde be had that the grammer schole there be
alwaies furnished with a godlie, lerned and zelouse
scholemaster And an usher for the educacion of the
youthe in good lerning and vertue and that thaie be
sufficientlye provyded for of a competent lyving and
lodging. Provided alwaies that yf enye be or shalbe
admytted to that office or funcion who shall not dili-
gentlye and carefullye behave him selfe therin to the
proffett of the youthe there to be brought upp, that
then everye suche Scholemaster or usher without
delaye to be removed, and a more diligent to be
provyded with as convenyent spede as maye be.

*® Exch. K.R. Memo. R. East. 4 & 5 Phil.and Mary,
m. 20 ; Southwell Min. Reg. Leases, fol. 35.

* Southwell Min. Reg. Leases.

* Thid. 95.

6 Chap. Act Bk. ii, 62.

189

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

The purport of this injunction seems to be to
bring the school under the direct power of the
chapter—that is in effect the residentiary canon
instead of the prebendary of Normanton. Hugh
Baskafild, M.A., is the next master mentioned.
On 22 May 1574 the chapter granted to him,
described as schole gramatice Southwelliensis ludi-
magistro, in consideration and recompense of his
labour and industry from time to time heretofore
bestowed and hereafter to be bestowed on the
education and instruction of children in gram-
matical learning (in “itteris grammaticalibus), an
annuity or yearly rent of £14 a year for the
term of his natural life if he remain in the
zealous education and instruction of youth in the
school of Southwell aforesaid. This document
is followed inthe Act Book by an act appointing
him attorney to receive £6 a year from Henry
Rubye of Wolverhampton, M.A., which he was
bound to pay to the chapter for the use of the
schoolmaster of Southwell for the time being.
Rubye is no doubt the same as Rathebye in the
Receiver’s Accounts and Rabye in the order of
the Court of Exchequer in 1554. Probably,
therefore, this sum of £6 was the balance of
10 a year payable from the Exchequer, Raby
retaining the rest asa kind of retiring pension.
Such an arrangement we saw made in 1504, and
such arrangements were frequent in after days
both as regards schoolmasterships and ecclesiastical
benefices, as well as civil offices, till the 18th
century. Baskafild appears as Baskerville in the
Gonville and Caius College register, in which
occurs the admission of Reginald Eton, who had
been a chorister at Southwell under Mr. Thet-
ford, musicus, and at school there under Mr. Bas-
kerville. At the ‘audit’ of 1577” the chapter
made and agreed upon certain articles, three of
which affected the school, settling its hours,
viz. 6-11 am., 1-5 p.m. from Lady Day to
Michaelmas ; and from Michaelmas to Lady
Day 7-11 a.m., 1-5 p.m. The order runs :—

No. 6. Also for our Scholemaster it is determined
that he shall hereafter frome the feaste of the Annun-
tiation of our ladye repayre together with his scholers
to the schole, at the howre of sixe of the clocke in the
morninge, his scholers continuinge there untyll a
leven of the clocke, and to repayre agayne at one of
the clocke, and remayne untill sixe of the clocke, and
this order to laste frome the saide feaste of thanuntia-
tion untill the feast of St. Michazll, after which feaste
thaie shall keepe theire howre at seven of the clocke
in the morninge and continewe as afforesaide untill a
leven of the clocke, and come againe at one, and con-
tinew untyll fyve and this to continewe untill the
feaste of thanuntiation, and this order shall con-
tinewe yearelye.”®

No. 7. Moreover it shall not be lawfull for the
scholemaster to geve his scholers leave to playe any
daye in the weeke, but onelye thursdaye in the after
noone, excepte thaie have leave of the residentiarie, or
in his absence of the nexte senior master [i.e. canon].

” Chap. Act Bk. 368. * Ibid. 370.

No. 8. Also the said scholemaster shall have his
scholers to repayre to the schole everie saturdaie in
the after noone, there to exercise theire writinge and
other exercises untill evyninge prayer.

Two years later solemn warning was given to
the master :-—

1579, 26 Oct. The xxvjth daie of October Anno
Domini 1579 Mr. Thomas Wethered and Mr.
Robert Cressie, Canon residentiaries, caused Hughe
Baskafeld, Scholemaster of the grammer schole in
Southwell to be called before them in to the Chapter
house and there commaunded me, John Lee, notarie
and Registrar to the Chapter, to reade openlie unto
the saide Hughe Baskafild certen articles before
specyfied and registred towching certen houres and
orders to be by him and his schollers observed ; which
I red accordinglie; after the reding wherof the
afforesaid Mr. Wethered and Mr. Cressie dyd ad-
monisshe the said Hughe Baskafild to observe the same
houres and orders declaring further unto him that it
was my Lord Graces pleasure that he should so doo.

J. Lee, Registrarius.

On 12 April 1580 the same residentiaries
‘sytting in the Chapter House, caused the above-
said Hughe Baskafild to come before theme in
the presence of Mr. John Todd, Canon Residen-
tiarie, and of me John Lee, Registrar, and then
and there did discharge the saide Hughe Baska-
fild of kepinge the gramer schole, or teaching
eny longer, and also of his wages for the same,
for that he had so notoriouslye slacked and
neglected his dutie in teaching the said schole,
to the great hindrance of the youthe therein
brought upp.’ A month later, 11 May,
Mr. John Cowper, M.A., was appointed by the
chapter as schoolmaster, during their pleasure.

On 2 April 1585 new statutes” for the
college were made by the Crown in the form of
letters patent in Latin. ‘They emphasized the
fact that the foundation was as much for educa-
tion as for religion; ‘Understanding that the
church aforesaid is hitherto by no means estab-
lished with laws and statutes; for the singular
love with which we embrace the continuous
worship of God, the catholic preaching of God’s
word, the institution of youth in truth and
virtue and good literature (juventutis in veritate
in virtute ac bonis literis institutionem) and the
perpetual maintenance of the poor.’ These
statutes were prepared by a general commission
issued to the Archbishop of York and others for
all the collegiate churches of the province of
York, founded by Henry VIII, Edward VI,
Mary, and Cardinal Pole. The statutes left the
sixteen prebendaries untouched, but reduced the
vicars choral to six, while the thirteen or fifteen
chantry priests had been swept away by the
Chantries Acts, though the college managed to
obtain the lands. As usual in cathedral statutes

* Orig. at Southwell. Printed in Dickinson, Hist.
of Southwell, 364; and Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi,
1317-23.

190

SCHOOLS

both grammar and song schools were duly pro-
vided for.

A master was to be set over the choristers that
the chapter may have boys rightly brought up,
both in modesty of manners and skill of singing
and was also to play the organ. The grammar
school was dealt with in chapter Io.

Of the Teacher or Schoolmaster (De Didascul sive
Ludimagistro). That piety and good literature (/iterae)
may daily flourish and increase more and more in the
said church and in neighbouring places, we ordain
that one learned in Greek and Latin, religious, honest,
industrious and skilled in teaching, to be elected
by the said Chapter and approved and confirmed
by the said Archbishop when the see of York
is full, and by the Dean and Chapter of York
sede vacante, be set over the Grammar School of
Southwell, who may continuously labour in instruction
both in learning and conduct (tam “iteris guam moribus).
Whose office it shall be not only to read teach and
hear Latin and Greek grammar and humane literature
(‘grammaticam Latinam et Graecam literasque
humaniores’) poets and orators, but also to imbue the
boys’ minds as far as possible with the institutes of the
Christian religion. And to him we assign and order
to be paid the usual and customary salary.

It is unfortunate that what the ‘usual and cus-
tomary salary’ was is not stated. The statute
concludes by giving a power of removal, if the
master is found idle or negligent, after three
warnings ; and that he should take an oath to
faithfully perform all things belonging to his
function in this behalf. By chapter 18 pro-
vision was also made, in revival of the chan-
cellor’s theological lectures, for a prelector in
theology, who was to give two or three lectures
a week. Catechizing of the members of the
church by a canon elected by the chapter was
also to take place ; ‘an explanation (explicatio)
of the catechism, that is the apostles’ creed, the
Lord’s prayer, the ten commandments, and the
sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist,’ being
held at 2 and 3 p.m. on Sundays. At it the
vicars choral, choristers, and other servants
(ministri) of the said church, also the school-
master and his pupils, were to be present.

On 10 October 1584 two of Cowper’s
pupils were admitted to Gonville and Caius
College,?* when he had already been made
a canon with the prebend of Normanton. On
6 August 1586 the chapter ‘did release and
acquite’ him ‘as well of and for all suche
summes of monney as hathe bene due to be
payde by him furthe of his said prebende, since
he hathe bene prebendarie of the same, unto the
Scholemaster of the gramer schole as also for all
suche summes as hereafter shalbe due.’ In lieu
of the sum of £2 so released, on the admission
of John Bayly, M.A., as master, on 7 Novem-
ber 1587, the chapter granted him £3 6s. 8d. a
year, ‘besides the yearly sum of £10 paid out of
the Exchequer.’

a J. Venn, Biog. Hist. i, 121.

William Dyson, M.A., succeeded at some
date unspecified ; for on 12 April 1589 he came
before the chapter and recited that because
‘through my own business I was unable to attend
and be present in the school as duty required, I
was by a decree of the charter removed and ex-
pelled from the prefecture and rule of the same,’
and then, ‘to remove all doubt and question
merely and of my own free will I simply re-
signed the school into the hands of the chapter.’
William Cartwright was his successor; but his
name only appears under the title of ‘school-
master or gymnast of Southwell (/udimagister
sive gymuista)’ as being pronounced contumacious
for being absent from a visitation held by the
chapter on 10 July 1589.

There was a great deal of scholastic activity
at this time in the chapter liberty ; for among
other persons who failed to attend the visitation
was Roger Swinscoe, schoolmaster at Caunton ;
and proceedings were taken against James Colly,
curate and schoolmaster of East Halam, for
failing to produce his ordination letters, and his
admission as master there was adjourned. At the
same time Alexander Barton of Oxton was
‘ presented to teach children’ and summoned for
Tuesday week following, when he was inhibited
on pain of law not to presume to teach (in-
struere) until admitted by ordinary authority.
On 12 June 1592 James Horrocks of South
Muskham was presented at a visitation ‘ for
teaching of schoole without license.” He was
summoned and inhibited from teaching until he
had been admitted by authority of the ordinary,
i.e. the chapter. On 21 July 1593 Richard
Eirith or Ayray, B.A., of South Muskham, was
‘presented to teach Mr. Marshall’s children
privately and is not known to be licensed,’ while
Ann Marshall was presented for ‘not cumminge
to church nor communicatinge.? But Ayray
must have satisfied the inquisitors, for he was
the same day admitted ‘to instruct boys in the
art of grammar in the parish of South Musk-
ham’ after being duly sworn. Two years later,
13 June 1595, William Garlande of Kirklington
was ‘presented for teachinge of children with-
out license,’ but he appeared and on affirming
that he only taught abecedarians, i.e. reading
(‘affirmat se instruere abecedarios tantum’), he
was dismissed as regards this article, but inhibit-
ed against performing service in Kirklington
chapel or elsewhere unless duly admitted by
the ordinary.

On 10 February 1594 *° the chapter had to
petition Sir John Fortescue, Chancellor of the
Exchequer, for the annuity due ‘to the master
of the free grammar school of Southwell,’ six
years’ arrears remaining unpaid. It appears from
an admission of Edward Manestie as master of
the choristers and organist on 6 April 1596,"

°° Chap. Act Bk. iii, beginning in 1590, p. 37.
51 Thid. 46.

191

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

that he was nearly as well paid as the grammar
schoolmaster, receiving £10 as organist and £2
as master of the choristers.

It would appear that already the Keton
scholarships were being fraudulently given to
boys who only qualified for them by being
colourably admitted choristers. For on 16 Sep-
tember 1596 the appointment, 6 April of the
same year, of John Grace as chorister, was readin
chapter, and a testimonial of his good conduct,
with a petition for his admission to St. John’s
College, Cambridge, as a pupil or scholar (dis-
cipulum sive scholarem) according to Keton’s deed,
was sealed with the chapter seal.

The school must have been of good
status at this time, for among the entries at
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge,” on
27 September 1596, was Francis son of Francis
Leek, esq., of Sutton Scarsdale, Derbyshire,
educated at Southwell Grammar School, admitted
as a fellow commoner at the age of fourteen,
with Francis Carter of Somerlay, also educated
at Southwell, as his servitor. [eck was a royalist
and made Earl of Scarsdale in 1645.

At some time not stated Richard Potter
became master of the grammar school. After
Potter’s resignation on 3 May 1615 John Bayes,
M.A., formerly master of Lobthorpe School,
Lincs., was admitted in solemn form in Latin,
which recited that he was first sworn ‘ not only
to the oath prescribed by an Act of Parliament
of 23 January 1558-9 and to obedience to the
chapter, but also to the new ecclesiastical canons
or royal constitutions required in this behalf.’
The chapter also granted him their licence ‘to
exercise and execute the duty and office of
schoolmaster and public instructor in the school
aforesaid, and of publicly professing the art of
grammar and of reading good and approved
authors as well Greek as Latin to his scholars,
according to the capacities of the hearers.’

The printed register of St. John’s College,
Cambridge, comes to our assistance in the next
few years. It shows that Mr. Satchell, Setchell,
or Sechell, as he is indifferently spelt, was master
from at least 1625 to 1640. William son of
William Horborie, husbandman, of Walkering-
ham, who had been seven years under Mr. Se-
chell, was admitted a pensioner 29 May 1632;
Edward Mason, son of the rector of Hockerton,
was admitted 4 June 1634, and John Marler,
son of the late rector of Aperston (Epperstone),
who had been four years at the school, was
admitted 27 May 1639. The Civil War made
no difference to the school. On 5 June 1645
Thomas son of John Holecroft of Balderton,
gentleman (and gentleman then meant gentle-
man), was admitted sizar at the aze of eighteen,
having been under Mr. Palmer at Southwell
School, and on 10 June 1647 Jervas son of
Miles Lee, who had also been under Mr.

* Venn, Biog. Hist. Genville and C.ius Coll. i, 160.

Palmer, was admitted pensioner, or paying under-
graduate, at the age of fifteen. When the
college of Southwell was once more abolished
with other cathedral and collegiate churches by
Act of Parliament in 1649, special provision
was made for the preservation of the schools and
other charities attached to them. So we find
William son of Herbert Leeke, gentleman, of
Halam, admitted a pensioner at St. John’s
25 October 1649. A little later, 7 April 1652,
an order,*? made by the Trustees for Plundered
Ministers and Schoolmasters, to whom this
matter was delegated, recites: ‘Whereas the
yearly stipend of £14 heretofore payable to the
Scolemaster of the Free Schole within the towne
of Southwell in the county of Nottingham out
of the revenues of the late prebend of Southwell
is now chardged and payable by the said ‘Trustees;
It is ordered that the said yearly stypend of {14
be continued and paid to Mr. Henry Moore,
Scholemaster of the said Schole, togeather with
the arrears payable since the 16th of Oct. 1650.’
A few days later Mr. John Cary, receiver,
was ordered to pay the said stipend ‘from tyme
to tyme . .. for and during such tyme as the
said Mr. Moore shall continue to educate the
youth in good litterature there and untill further
order of the said Trustees.’ He was duly paid
on 25 March 1651.

On 4 May 1654 two boys from Southwell were
admitted to St. John’s, Cambridge ; viz. Samuel
son of Thomas Leeke, clerk, bred under his father
(who was head master of Nottingham School),
and also a little time in Southwell School,
‘aliquamtillo etiam tempore in schola de South-
well,’ no doubt to qualify for a Keton scholarship,
and Matthew Sylvester, son of a mercer, two
years under Mr. Henry Moore.

In 1655 Moore had given place to Mr.
Francis Leeke, an order of the trustees * being
made, 24 January 1655, for payment of the
sum of £14 a year to him, ‘hereby appointed
scholemaster of the said schoole, out of the rents
and profits of the impropriate tythes of Oxton
and Scarrington . . . to be continued . . . for
such time as he shall discharge the duty of
schoolemaster there, or untill further order of
the Trustees, And Lewt. Col. John Robinson,
receiver, is appointed to pay the same accord-
ingly.” Leeke continued master to the Restora-
tion. When the minster was restored and the
canons and vicars returned after the third dis-
solution and restoration, one of their first
capitular acts** on 12 September 1660 was to
appoint Francis Leeke surrogate and deputy for
probate of the residentiary canon, John Niele.

* Lamb. MSS. Aug. Bks. 969, p. 95; 978, p.
4525 1019, Pp. 49, 70.

* Ibid. 967, p. 15.

* Southwell Minster Chap. Min. 1660-70, under
date. This is the first Chapter Act Book the pages
of which are not numbered.

192

SCHOOLS

On 21 February following 1660-1 ‘the masters
(domini) read publicly a certain certificate in the
name of the chapter on behalf of Master Francis
Leeke holding the office or place of schoolmaster
and ordered it to be sealed.’*® In this quiet
way they validated Leeke’s title to the master-
ship without professedly making a new appoint-
ment or confirming the old one made by the
Parliamentary authorities. On 8 June 1661
Stephen Fothergill, bred at Repton and chorista
Southwellensis, was admitted at St. John’s, and
on 7 June 1665 the master’s own son or nephew,
Charles Leeke of Halam, son of Francis Leeke,
clerk, bred at Southwell, et @ choro ibidem, was
admitted pensioner, and became a Keton fellow
30 October 1669.

Leeke seems to have remained in office till his
death some ten years later. There is no specific
mention of the cause of vacancy in the Chapter
Act on the next appointment of a master. This
is entered in the Act Book under date 11 April
1670 as ‘business of the election and collation
of the place of schoolmaster of the free grammar
school of Southwell on Andrew Meires, deacon.’
Andrew Meires was probably a Southwell boy
and had been admitted a sizar of St. John’s on
16 June 1669 at the age of twenty, so that his
university career was probably passed at some
other college. Four boys from the school, bred
under Mr. Meers or Myres, as he is variously
called, were admitted at St. John’s between
1677 and 1684. As one of them was born at
Hartington in Derbyshire, it would appear there
were boarders at the time. The last admitted,
14 May 1684, was son of Henry Watkinson,
D.C.L., which shows that the sons of the canons
as well as others frequented the school. Meires
probably died in 1688. For on 12 June 1690
‘at a chapter court,’ upon petition ‘made by
Mr. Thomas Hasildon, scholemaster of South-
well grammer Schole, a Certificat was made in
these words viz. We the chapiter of the Col-
legiat Church of the Blessid Mary the Virgin of
' Southwell in co. Notts. do certify whom it may
' concern that Mr. Thomas Hesildon was Schole-
‘master of the Gramer Schole in Southwell aforesd.
‘at Lady Day 1688 and so has continued ever
since.’ Mr. Hesilden is called Haseldine on the
entrance in 1689 at St. John’s, of Robert son
of Samuel Leek, clerk, of Nottingham, who had
been bred under him at Southwell. He seems
to have been somewhat of a pluralist. For on
“30 June 1692 This day was a chapter held,
Mr. William Mompesson the canon residentiary
and Mr. Porter being present, at which it was
decreed that . . . Mr. Hesleden’s being Schole

% Southwell Minster Chap. Min. 1660-70, under
date : ‘ Publice perlecto quodam certificatorio nomine
capituli ex parte magistri Francisci Leeke gerentis
offcium seu locum ludimagistri schole grammatice in
Southwell domini idem certificatorium sigillandum
fore decreverunt.”

Master, Vicar Choral and Vicar of the parish, is
thought to be inconvenient, if they can be legally
separated.” As, however, the pay of the master
was restricted to the ancient {14 a year, the
practical difficulty of separating the offices was
very great. As a vicar choral only got £9 a
year and the parish vicar £20, the united salary
of £43 year could not be regarded as excessive.
A vicar choralship at all events remained an
inseparable accident of the schoolmastership until
the fourth dissolution of the collegiate church
took place and the school suffered to the verge
of extinction afterwards. The union of these
two offices at least was practically recognized by
Archbishop Sharpe in his injunctions at a visita-
tion held in 1693.77

Sixthly.—Furthermore whereas complaints have
been made unto us that the Grammar School of
Southwell is much prejudiced through the School-
Master being a Vicar Choral of the Church (his
attendance on the service of the quire necessarily
occasioning a neglect of the school) For remedying
this inconvenience We do order and require, that
from henceforward the Master of the Grammar
School strictly and constantly attend his school on all
school-days and at all school hours as much as any
former master of the School that was no Vicar Choral
was accustomed to do or so much as he himself if he
was no Vicar Choral is in duty bound to do; and,
further, if notwithstanding this constant attendance
that we require of the School Master the Chapter
nevertheless find it necessary (either for his encourage-
ment or for performance of the Church service on
Sundays and Holidays when most of the other Vicars
may be supposed absent at their cures) that the said
Schoolmaster should be continued a Vicar In that
case We do enjoin that the said Chapter shall provide
some fit person to supply his place in the quire at all
times when his presence is required in the school
Provided that he himself do in person perform the
duties of his Vicar Choral’s place on Sundays and
Holidays.

As no independent or augmented endowment
of the school was made, though the value of the
‘wonted and accustomed salary’ had very much
lessened, the practice of appointing vicars chora!
to the schoolmastership necessarily continued.

The Chapter Act Book from 1692 to 172%
has disappeared. St. John’s College Register *”
supplies the names of masters: Mr. Benson, from
at least 1699 to 1707; Mr. Neep, an ‘old boy,’
from 1714 to 1720; Mr. Lambe, probably
1720 to 1723; and Mr. Hodgshon already there
in 1728. The next Chapter Act Book shows
that the chapter fully recognized the inadequacy
of the salary and met it by conferring a plurality
of offices on the master.

24 Oct. 1728 Decreed that Mr. Hodgshon School-
master of Southwell and Vicar Chorall do succeed

37 Dickinson, Hist. Southwell, 381.
378 Op. cit. ll, 1$1, 170, 184, 2153 ill, 30, 32,
37) 47:

2 193 25

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Mr. Barnard deceased, in the vicarage of Upton and
was collated accordingly, prestitis prius etc.

Whereas there is a Decree with respect to the
Vicarage of Upton made July 31. 1701. That it be
for the future disposed of to one of the Vicars Chorall
who is best qualified to be Vicar Chorall according to
the Statutes of this Church, which Decree is con-
firmed and extended to all the livings in the gift of
the chapter, after the refusall of the Prebendaries, by
a Decree made 22 Oct. 1724. This Rule we think
proper to be generally observed ; but considering that
Mr. Hodgshon the present Schoolmaster is a diligent
man and lies under great discouragements with respect
to his School, the Salary of {10 per annum due from
the Exchequer having been stopt for 4 years past,
and it is uncertain when or whether ever it will be
paid, for his encouragement we do give him the
Vicarage of Upton, None of the other Vicars Chorall
who may be better qualified in Church Musick being
willing to accept it, except Mr. Bird, who was this
day presented by the Chapter to a living in Lincoln-
shire.

A gallant and successful effort was then made
to get arrears of the grant from the Exchequer.

On 28 Jan. 1728-g Whereas there are 4 years
arrears due to the Schoolmaster Mr. William Hodg-
shon, out of H.M.’s Exchequer, Decreed that a
Petition be drawn up in Order to be presented to
Sir Robert Walpole, Chancellor of the Exchequer
which was drawn up accordingly and ordered to be
ingrossed and sealed with the seal ad causas and signed
by the hands of the prebendaries and is as follows,

To the Right Honble Sir Robt. Walpole Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer and one of H.M.’s most
Honble. Privy Councill. The Humble Petition of
the Chapter of the collegiate Church of the Blessed
Virgin Mary of Southwell in the county of Notts.
Humbly sheweth

That the free Grammar School of Southwell being
a very ancient foundation was endowed in the reign of
King Edward VI with a pension out of his Majesty’s
Exchequer of {10 per annum, in recompence we
believe for severall hardships which we find put upon
our church at that time, which pension appears to
have been duly paid till 37 Elizabeth when we find
a petition in our old Ledger Books from our Chapter
to Sir John Fortescue, then Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, complaining that the said Pension had not
been paid for 6 years past and praying that he would
be pleased to grant a warrant to the Auditor or
Receiver of H.M.’s rents and revenues in the said
county of Nottingham, to allow and pay the arrearages
of the said pension and to continue the payment of
it, upon which we find it was ordered to be paid and
was accordingly paid, so far as appears to us, till the
year 1724, since which time the School Master tho’
he hath often applyed to the proper officers hath not
been able yet to get it paid We beg leave to represent
to your Honour that our present Schoolmaster Mr.
William Hodgshon is a deserving man and diligent in
his office, that he is obliged to teach all boys that are
sent to him belonging to the town of Southwell
freely, and that his salary is but small and that without
this Royall Bounty very far from being a suitable
reward. We therefore presume from this example
of our Predecessors to trouble your Honour with our
humble petition that out of your regard to piety and

learning you would please to take our case into con-
sideration which we hope will meet with the same
favourable acceptance as that of our Predecessors did,
and that your honour will give effectuall orders for
the payment of the said pension, as well as of the
arrears due upon it ; which will be a great benefit to
this church and town and will engage our prayers for
your happiness.

The petition was granted, and since that time
there have been no further difficulties with the
Exchequer payment, it having become insignifi-
cant with the fall in the value of money.

25 June 1730. This day Mr. Henry Bugg,
clerk, was chose Schoolmaster of the free Grammar
School in Southwell in the room of Mr. Hodgshon,
deceased ; to be admitted when approved and con-
firmed by the Archbishop as the Statutes direct.

N.B. Mr. Bugg was examined by the Residentiary
in the chapter house, and chosen before 2 others who
were examined with him.

On 23 July 1730 Bugg having exhibited the in-
strument of confirmation under the seal of the arch-
bishop was duly admitted in a Latin form and to a
vicar choralship at the same time.

Mr. Bugg seems to have been of a combative
disposition, quarrelling with the parents, the
vicars choral, and the chapter. The first quarrel
was with the parents, and the chapter found Bugg
in the wrong.

On 21 Oct. 1731 Whereas Richard Lloyd and
Talbot Leybourne were upon some misunderstanding
between the schoolmaster and their parents taken from
the free Grammar school, and Mr. Bugg having
refused to take them into the school, and the reasons
he offered for it being no way satisfactory to the
Chapter ; It is hereby ordered that Mr. Bugg shall
signifye to the parents of the said children that he is
willing to receive the said children again into the
School and teach and instruct them as he does other
boys and according, Mr. Abson at Mr. Bugg’s desire,
undertook to deliver a coppy of this decree to
Mr. Leybourne and Mrs. Lloyd.

The same day it was ‘ Decreed that the Bill
relating to the repairs of the school be paid by
the clerk of the fabric.’

The next quarrel was about his vicarial
duties.

19 Apr. 1733. There having been some dispute
between Mr. Bugg, Schoolmaster and Mr. Cooper,
vicar of the parish of Southwell, about reading prayers
on certain days. It was agreed between them upon
the recommendacion and consent of the Chapter that
Mr. Cooper is to read prayers on St. Stephen’s, St.
John’s, Innocent’s and Newyear’s Day (except any of
these days happen on a Sunday, in which case Mr. Bugg
is to take one part of the day as usuall and in lieu
thereof Mr. Cooper is to read on Epiphany, when it
so happens, to make up 4 holy days every year) Mr.
Bugg to doe all occasionall offices as Christnings,
Churchings, or any other that shall happen at the
time of his reading prayers on Sundays in Mr.
Cooper’s absence.

194

SCHOOLS

Finally Bugg was deprived of his vicarage.

24 July 1735. You Henry Bugg clerk, Vicar
Choral of this church, for your notorious breach of
the Statutes of this church and for your subsequent
contumacy thereupon the Chapter has unanimously
decreed you to be legally deprived of your office of
Vicar Choral of this Church. And I, Edward Wilson,
Canon Residentiary, by the order and in the name of
the said chapter doe pronounce you expelled, and the
said office of Vicar Choral to be void to all intents
and purposes of law as if you were naturally dead.

Mr. Bugg’s vicar’s place being made void who as
Schoolmaster and vicar used to read prayers every
Holyday and one part of the day every Sunday pur-
suant to an injunction of Abp. Sharp; It is decreed
that the other remaining vicars be required to take
upon them the reading of prayers at such times till
further provisions be made.

It would seem, however, that the deprivation
was revoked, and that Mr. Bugg afterwards lived
at peace, for the Chapter Books reveal no more
of him for nearly thirty years, when the next
master was admitted on his resignation. An in-
termittent stream of boys flowed to St. John’s,
Cambridge, throughout his time, beginning 9 May
1734 with his brother John son of Henry Bugg,
husbandman, and including a son, Whaley Bugg,
in 1756.

In 1755 St. John’s College rebelled against the
restriction of the Keton fellowships to Southwell
choristers. Thomas Todington, son of a farmer
in Leicestershire, bred at Southwell School under
Mr. Bugg, was admitted a sizar ‘for Mr. Bugg,’
the schoolmaster’s brother, 12 April 1751.
When a Keton fellowship fell vacant in 1755
Thomas Todington became a candidate for it,
but the college elected William Craven, a Craven
scholar, fourth wrangler, and Chancellor’s medal-
list, afterwards master of the college, in prefer-
ence, and he was admitted 17 March 1755.
Todington therefore appealed to the Bishop of
Ely,as visitor, stating that he had ‘been for three
years a chorister of the church of Southwell and
constantly performed choral duty there.’ The
college said that a statute of the college provided
that no scholar should be in any way deformed
or mutilated, and that this necessarily applied to
fellows also, and Todington was deformed and
had been declared ineligible to a fellowship on
that account, and that they had reason to believe
his learning defective, while his behaviour ‘did
not incline them to elect him.” The bishop,
however, directed them to elect him. The
college then moved the King’s Bench for a pro-
hibition to the bishop as not being in order. This
was refused by Lord Mansfield 26 November
1757, and Todington was admitted in place of
Craven 19 March 1757-8. He resided for
nearly twenty years, and afterwards held several
college livings, and died 27 January 1790.

21 Jan. 1762. Decreed that Davies Pennell
clerk B.A. be admitted a Vicar Choral in the colle-

giate church of Southwell. Decreed that the said
Davies Pennell be elected Master of the Free Gram-
mar School of Southwell, now void by the resigna-
tion of Henry Bugg clerk, and that his licence to
the same be sealed at the next chapter.

Next day he was given ‘all the Salary due in
the Vacancy.’ ‘The only incident noted in
Pennell’s time is a decree, 19 July 1764, ‘ that
the Grammar School scholars have leave to sit in
the seat on the south side the choir under the
choristers.’ After eleven years, on 22 April1773,
‘The Reverend Mr. Pennell desired leave to
resign the office of Master of the Free Grammar
School of Southwell, which resignation was
accepted and Mr. Pennell further desired leave
to continue the vicarage of Barnby in the
Willows, which he now holds and such leave was
granted as far as the Chapter had power so to do.’
In 1778 Pennell was master of Newark Gram-
mar School. Pennell’s successor at Southwell
was Richard Barrow, clerk, who was admitted a
vicar choral and master of the free grammar
school of Southwell 20 January 1774. It was
at the same time ‘ Decreed that the Expences of
Advertizing etc. for a School Master be defrayed
by the quarter’s salary of the School during the
Vacancy and out of the money arising by sale of
the wood at Warsop.’

‘21 Apr. 1774 Decreed that the Grammar
School house be repaired in such necessary
manner as the next Residentiary shall direct and
that the Expences of such repairs be paid out of
the Fabric Account.’

In 1775 the Keton fellowships again proved
a bone of contention. William Wood, son of
a husbandman of Hockerwood near Southwell,
had been a chorister at Southwell for six years,
from 1756-62, and had been in the grammar
school till he went to St. John’s on 16 March
1764, and after taking his degree became parish
vicar at Southwell in 1769 and vicar of North
Leverton in 1773. In 1775 on the resignation
of Todington, the hero of the battle of 1755,
he resigned his living and stood for the vacant
Keton fellowship. The college preferred Cham-
bre William Abson, B.A. 1774,a much younger
man, who was not a Johnian, though his father
had been. ‘The father was vicar of Kirtlington,
and Abson had been at Southwell school from
1759, at the age of seven, but only became a
chorister when he was sixteen years old for a
quarter of a year so as colourably to qualify for a
Keton fellowship. Wood disputed the validity
of the qualification, and the Bishop of Ely decided
against Abson, and Wood was admitted fellow
24 October 1775. He seems to have been a
litigious, but successfully litigious, person. He
became junior bursar and then senior bursar of
the college. In 1797 he was turned out on the
ground of maladministration and lengthy legal
proceedings ensued, which reduced him to bank-
ruptcy. Eventually, however, he took the

195

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

college living of Lawford, Essex, and died in
1821.

In 1784 Barrow resigned, and the grammar
school, which was as we saw located in the
Booth Chantry Chapel, attached to the second
bay of the nave onthe south side, was ordered to
be pulled down. The school was held for a
short time ® in the ‘Red Prebend’ or Oxton
altera pars, afterwards the Assembly Room. But
on 20 January 1784 it was ‘ Decreed that Mary
Becher should treat with Mr. Lock for the
Chantry in order to accommodate a Schoolmaster
with a house and school.’ The treaty was
yrought to a successful conclusion, and the school
was planted, where it now stands, in the old
chantry priests’ common house at the west end
of the churchyard. William Pinching, clerk,
M.A., admitted a vicar choral and master the
same day, was at first placed in lodgings,
Mrs. Sturtevant being, 19 January 1786, ‘ paid
such reasonable Bill for lodging for Mr. Pinching
the Schoolmaster as the Residentiary shall think
proper to allow out of the Rota fines.’

Pinching’s term of office was short, the Rev.
Magnus Jackson being appointed probationer
vicar choral and grammar schoolmaster in the
room of William Pinching resigned, 18 October
1787. He was given, 17 April 1788, ‘the seat
in the church lately used by Mr. Lock’s tenants
of the Chantry’; whence we may conclude
that he had boarders to accommodate. He soon
found the new premises insufficient for the school,
It was decreed 21 January 1790 ‘that Mr.
Jackson be paid £14 for Repairs and making an
addition to his School room in the Chantry,’ and
next year, 21 July 1791, a lease of a piece of
ground (part of a messuage and garden in South-
well) was granted him for forty years in order to
erect and build a schoolroom upon such piece of
ground. On 28 July 1794 Mr. Jackson was
desired to order the boys of his school not to
trespass on the churchyard, but confine their play
to Popley’s piece.

After twenty years of service Mr. Jackson
was, on 20 April 1809, ‘permitted to resign the
school as soon as a successor can be appointed,
and also have leave to reside in the vicar’s house
now occupied by Mr. S. Becher from and after
the 1st day of June next, if it should be more
advisable for the new Schoolmaster to occupy the
Chantry.” On 20 July 1809 the Rev. Henry
Kempson, clerk, M.A., was elected master of
the free grammar school at Southwell with per-
mission to occupy the chantry house and
premises, and at the same time appointed a pro-
bationer vicar choral in the room of Sherard
Becher, clerk, licensed to the curacy of Kirk-
lington. Jackson was paid £125 due for sur-
rendering the lease of the chantry ‘when the
funds of the Chapter are better adapted for the
discharge thereof, with lawful interest in the

* H. Livett, Southwell Minster (1883), 139.

meantime.’ On 18 October 1810 Mr. Kemp-
son had leave for his boarders to sit in the pew
No. 1 during the chapter’s pleasure at the usual
rent. He was allowed the sum of {£15 by way
of additional salary as schoolmaster to Michael-
mas 1810 to be paid out of the Rota Fund, this
making his salary £25 a year besides the Crown
payment. Two years later 23 January 1812,
Mr. Kempson resigned. So low had the school
sunk that an advertisement was ordered to be
inserted in proper newspapers stating the vacancy
and requiring that candidates applying for the
same must have taken their first degree at
either of the universities of Oxford or Cam-
bridge. A B.A. was elected on 23 April in the
person of the Rev. James Foottit. He was made
a probationer vicar choral and curate of Kirk-
lington at the same time.

19 October 1815: ‘ Decreed that the arrange-
ment which for many years has been made
between the Parish Vicar and the Schoolmaster
(being Vicars choral) by which they perform the
duty of this church on Sundays and on Christ-
mas Day alternately, morning and evening, be
confirmed by the chapter.’ In case of illness the
evening lecturer for the day had to perform this
duty. On 23 January 1817 ten guineas was
voted to Mr. Foottit ‘out of the Rota Fund, in
part of the repairs of the chantry House occa-
sioned by an accidental fire.’ As rector of Brigs-
ley (from 1813) he engaged in a suit for tithes
which cost the chapter £178. Atanelection of
a proctor to Convocation on 23 July 1818 he was
curate of Halam, and next year, 21 January 1819,
became vicar of Upton, which he held with
Brigsley. His son James Foottit was admitted
18 January 1811 with a view toa Keton scholar-
ship, the names of the Keton scholars and fellows
being asked of St. John’s College. He never got
one. On 24 January 1822 Foottit resigned Brigs-
ley for the vicarage of Barnby in the Willows.

In 1819 the old chantry house was pulled
down and the present unbeautiful structure sub-
stituted for it. On 4 November 1819 it was
decreed that

the plans submitted at the Chapter for the improve-
ment of the house and premises late under lease to
Mr. Lock and Humphrey Bralesford by taking down
the Chauntry and the School Room now in the occu-
pation of Mr. Foottit; and by rebuilding a House
and School room for the School master on the site
now exhibited, appear to present an opportunity of
realizing important advantages; that the same be
earried into effect and that the proposal of Mr Foot-
tit to relinquish all the premises in his occupation
except those delineated in the design for a dwelling
house, school room and playground, and to contri-
bute towards the expenses thereof the sum of £600,
on condition that in case he shall cease to be School
master at any time during the next 20 years (reckoned
from Lady Day 1820) he shall be repaid the sum of
£30 for every year of such term that shall be then
unexpired, be accepted.

196

SCHOOLS

In 1825 the old music school also disappeared,
being with the vicars’ vestry converted into a
library, the rector chori, who was also organist,
being ordered to instruct the choristers in the
room adjoining the treasury. A curious order
made 24 July 1828 shows how unblushing was
the practice of colourable choristership, which
had been apparently accompanied by a practice
of ‘sweating’ applied to the wages of the substi-
tute, the chapter finding it necessary to provide
that ‘every chorister obtaining dispensation
from attendance at service shall provide a suffi-
cient substitute and the compensation to be in
the same proportion as the stipend allowed by
the chapter to such chorister.’

In 1831 Foottit as a vicar choral joined in an
attempt to extract from the chapter a proportion
of the improved rents of the old common lands of
the vicars choral, but the request was peremp-
torily refused, on the ground that they had been
merged in the chapter lands on the refoundation.
In 1835 Foottit resigned Upton for Farnsfield
Vicarage.

An entry in the Chapter Decree Book of
12 November 1835 shows a quaint survival of
mediaeval manners and customs. ‘The Rev.
Robert Fowler, a vicar choral, did on 13 Octo-
ber in the College School house,’ the first use of
this term for the old one of Free Grammar
School, ‘by using violent and intemperate lan-
guage produce an affray to the great scandal and
disgrace of the church and clergy as proved by
the testimony of eye witnesses and his own ad-
mission.” He was therefore called in and repri-
manded by the residentiary, and the reprimand
ordered to be entered on the minutes. Unfor-
tunately the causa belli is not recorded.

In 1836 the movement began which ended in
the abolition of vicars choral, residentiaries, and
canons, and in fact of the whole collegiate
establishment, and with it the depravation, by the
almost total disendowment, of the school.

Foottit soon retired on one of his many vicar-
ages, receiving £100 for the school buildings.
He died in 1841. The Rev. Thomas Massey,
B.A., was elected master and vicar choral in
his place 19 January 1837, and the following
year was made perpetual curate of Halloughton.
The change of master was signalized by a repeal
of the school rules of 24 January 1716, and the
making of new ones. The school hours were
now made from 7 to 9, 10 to 12 a.m., and 2 to
5 p.m., but in winter ‘Sunrise to sunset.’ Saints’
days were whole holidays except for morning
school ; and Wednesdays and Saturdays half-
holidays from noon. A week was added to the
vacation, which now became five weeks at both
Midsummer and at Christmas. Fees were im-
posed of £4 a year for English subjects and
writing and arithmetic, and another £4 a year
for mathematics, The choristers were now sent
to the endowed school at Easthorpe, the master

of it being paid 8s. a quarter for each ‘ under the
general superintendence of the rector chort.’

Massey was made rector of Hatcliffe 24 Octo-
ber 1839, on his resignation of the school.
Charles Taylor was elected 23 July 1840, and
the freedom of the school was finally abolished,
“the Master of the College Grammar School’
being now ‘authorized to demand any sum not
exceeding £2 quarterly, from any boy born in
the parish and in consideration instruct them in
English, Greek, Latin and reading, writing and
arithmetic.” He was also to examine the
choristers at Easthorpe School quarterly, but the
rector chori was still nominally responsible for
their supervision and instruction. In conse-
quence of changes made by the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners, the parish vicar was no longer
to be a vicar choral. It was in consequence
provided that whereas morning service on Sun-
days had hitherto been performed by the parish
vicar and schoolmaster alternately, now the parish
vicar was always to take the morning service, and
the schoolmaster, ‘ being a minor canon’ (that
title having now superseded that of vicar choral),
the evening or second service and preach at it,
receiving £1 a sermon. The chapter now with
dissolution imminent bethought them of the
elementary education of the town and gave
{£100 and a site for a National school. Two
years later they gave £2 a year out of the Rota
Fund for prizes in the school for proficiency in
classical and general knowledge, 255. for the first
and 15s. for the second.

Taylor resigned the mastership and vicar
choralship on 15 May 1843. William Fletcher
was on 7 January 1844 elected ‘master of the
Free Grammar School,’ but there was now no
vicar choralship to be added to it, the ‘minor
canons’ being now reduced to two. ‘The chap-
ter on 17 April 1845 instituted, or at least for
the first time paid for, an examination of the
school by an independent examiner, the master
of St. John’s, Cambridge, being asked to nomi-
nate the examiner, while the archbishop gave
£10 for prizes. Fletcher stayed for five years.

The Rev. William Cole succeeded on 1 No-
vember 1848. On 4 April 1850 new rules
were made for the ‘ Master and Scholars of the
Collegiate School of Southwell.’ Morning school
underwent a further alleviation, being reduced
toan hour, from 7.30 to 8.30 a.m.,, later school
from 10 torand 3to5. But Saints’ days were
curtailed, there being school from 8 to g and 11 to
rand 3 to 5 p.m., while the half-holidays began at
1 instead of 12, Reversion to a practically free
school took place, it being ordered that ‘ Every
male person born in the parish of Southwell be
instructed pursuant to the Statutes free of ex-
pense,’ i.e. in classics, but for other subjects he
[the master] might charge £12 a year, excepting
sons of any former or existing vicar or minor
canon of the collegiate body, who were to be

197

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

admitted at £2 10s. a quarter. The restriction
of freedom to these classes was quite unhistorical
and unstatutory.

Now that the chapter revenues were trans-
ferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners the
last members of the chapter developed a generous
regard for the endowment of the school, which,
though the moral claim was overwhelming, they
had not exhibited before. On 4 April 1850
they petitioned the Ecclesiastical Commissioners
to increase the ancient salary of £12 to compen-
sate for the loss of the minor canonries and
chapter benefices held by former masters as an
endowment of their office, and of which they were
now deprived by the late Cathedral Acts of
Parliament. No response was made. A further
blow was struck by ‘St. John College in the
recent case of Arthur Calvert and in the former
one of Maltby, who had been Sunday or Saints’
day choristers, having objected to admit them to
Keeton fellowships,’ and the Bishops of Ely, as
visitors, confirmed the objection of the college.

Cole retired from an untenable position. On
14 February 1853 the Rev. Richard Bethell
Earle was appointed by George Wilkins, B.A.,
canon residentiary, and Archdeacon of Notting-
ham, as the representative of the chapter who
were dying out. On 4 June 1854 he was made
curate of Edingley. He informed the Cathedral
Commission * that he could not get possession of
the schoolhouse because the Ecclesiastical Com-
mission demanded a rent for it, and the late
master made a claim for fixtures which the Com-
missioners would not take. So he had no
boarders and only seven day boys. ‘ Without
knowing the intention of the Commissioners, I
am,’ he says, ‘ necessarily unable to judge whe-
ther it is desirable for me to continue to hold
the mastership of the school or to incur the
necessary expenses in having it fairly and pro-
perly organized.” The Ecclesiastical Commis-
sioners then and since, in their ignorance of the
history and law of collegiate churches, regarded
themselves as having no duty to the grammar
school, though an integral part of the foundation,
and instead of restoring to it a proportionate
part of the endowment of which it had been
robbed, refused to help it at all. The result was
that on 26 August 1858 Earle was appointed
vicar of Barnby in the Willows on the death of
the former master, Charles Taylor. So the
school for five years ceased to exist.

In 1857 another blow was struck at Southwell
School by the severance of its long connexion,
extending over three centuries and a quarter,
with St. John’s College, Cambridge. By a sta-
tute made by the Cambridge University Com-
missioners 22 May 1857, all local preference for
fellowships of the college were swept away, it
being provided that ‘no preference shall here-

* Rep. 1854, App. 754.

after be given toany fellowship to any person in
respect of such person’s place of birth, or of his
having been a scholar on any foundation in the
college . . . or of his having been a chorister in
any capitular or collegiate church,’ and the same
provision was made as to scholarships and exhi-
bitions. The statute, however, only confirmed
the extinction of a right which most probably
would have been extinguished with the chapter,
and was anyhow in fact in abeyance, as only
‘colourable’ choristers had for many years gone
up to the college. The last Keton scholar
was the Venerable Brough Maltby, Archdeacon
of Nottingham in 1888, but he won an open
scholarship, and to his admission a special proviso.
was attached, that he was ‘no way admitted
owing to the fact of his having been a chorister,’
since his choristership was nominal. When in
1852 he applied for a Keton fellowship he was
refused.

On 8 April 1862 the residentiary canon re-
corded that he had obtained from the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners the grammar schoolhouse, which
they claimed as vested in them, for the future
residence of the master, and asum of money for
repairs. The Rev. Charles Peter Incledon was
therefore appointed master. Before, however, he
could reopen the school at Midsummer 1863, as
intended, he ‘ met with unexpected misfortune,”
and left Southwell. The Rev. James Dudley
Cargill, B.D., was then nominated 12 January
1864, by George Wilkins, last Canon Resi-
dentiary, Vicar General and Canon of Norman-
ton. He had 11 day boys that year, and in
1867 the Schools Inquiry Commission ** found
11 boarders and 21 day boys. While the school
was closed a successful private school had been
established to take its place, and Mr. Cargill had
an uphill fight. The last Canon of Southwell
died 11 February 1873, and later in the year
Mr. Cargill resigned the mastership.

The inhabitants of Southwell then petitioned
the Bishop of Lincoln, to whose diocese Notting-
hamshire had been transferred, to preserve the
school. On ascertaining that the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners would recognize his appointment
and pay ‘the ancient salary,’ he appointed the
Rev. A. C. Whitley. After four years, during
which the school did not rise above 13 boys,
Whitley left. The bishop then persuaded Mr. .
John Wright, who had a private school of some
30 boys, to move to the grammar school, and pur-
ported to appoint him master. In 1888, when
the Charity Commissioners took the case up
with a view to a scheme, there were 45 boys in
the school, of whom 19 were boarders. In spite
of the demonstration of the history of the school
and its relation with the collegiate church,” the

® Sch. Ing. Rep. xvi, 427.

“The report was made by the present writer as
Assistant Commissioner.

198

SCHOOLS

Ecclesiastical Commissioners refused a grant for
the school under section 27 of the Endowed
Schools Act, 1869, which gave them power, and
practically directed them to give grants to a
school forming part of the foundation of any
cathedral or collegiate church. So the scheme
was not proceeded with. In 1897 the Rev.
Joseph Souden Wright, who had long acted as
master, succeeded his father in the mastership.
He won a leaving exhibition from Cowley’s
School, Donnington, and was a scholar of
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

At length, after the establishment of a quasi-
collegiate church with a chapter of honorary and
unpaid canons, the present writer had the satis-
faction as an Examiner of the Board of Education
of completing the scheme which had been begun
nearly twenty years before. It wassealed by the
Board under the Charitable Trusts Acts 22 De-
cember 1902. The scheme created a governing
body of thirteen persons, the Bishop of Southwell
and the rector ex officio, two appointed by the
honorary canons, two each by the councils of the
parish and rural district of Southwell and the
county of Nottingham, one each by the governing
bodies of Nottingham University College and of
Trinity and St. John’s Colleges, Cambridge. The
tuition fees to be charged are fixed at from £6
to {12 a year, and boarding fees at £50 a year.
The school now contains some 50 boys, of whom
about half are boarders. Alas! the whole en-
dowment which this august body has to manage
amounts to £47 45.a year: consisting of the com-
muted Crown payment, reduced by the deduction
of fees before commutation, and the reduction in
the interest of consols since, to £7 45. a year,
and £40 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners,
made up of the old payment of £2 from the
Canon of Normanton as Chancellor, £12 from
the chapter revenues, £20 the augmented
payment of the song schoolmaster, £2 a year
given for prizes in the grammar school, and £2
for general purposes of the song school. If the
school had its due proportion of the revenues of
the church, according to ancient payments, it is
certain that not less than ten, and probably not
less than thirty, times that sum should be pay-
able. Another £60 a year is payable to the
school so long as the choristers are educated in
it. At the next shuffle of ecclesiastical revenues
perhaps the rights of this immemorial institution
to a proper share of the revenues of the collegiate
church may receive as much recognition as some
vicarage of yesterday.

THE MAGNUS GRAMMAR SCHOOL,
NEWARK

Newark Grammar School was supposed to
date, and to be early at that, from the gift of the
endowment it still enjoys made by Archdeacon
Magnus in 1530-1, until it was shown, from the

records of Southwell Minster, that it existed
some 300 years before that at least, being the
subject of a dispute terminated by arbitration in
1238. Further, it was shown to have been
frequented by two nephews or other relations of
an Archbishop of York a century later, while a
presentation to its mastership in 1485 was also
extant.’ Since then more gaps in its history have
been filled up by the researches of Mr. Cornelius
Brown among the Newark Town Records, and
the results published in his History of Newark,
which appeared at the end of 1907, a few weeks
after the author died.

The first mention of the school certainly
shows that it was no new foundation, but one
which may have existed for a century or more.
Inserted in the White Book of Southwell
Minster for the sake of preserving on record a
settlement by the highest judicial authority in
the Church—the pope—affecting one of the chief
rights and duties of the Chapter of Southwell, is
a ‘Letter on the right of presentation of the
school of Newark’ (‘Littera de jure presenta-
cionis scolarum de Newerke’).

It is so important a document in the history
not only of Newark School and Southwell
Minster, but of schools in general, that it must
be given in full :—

Know all sons of holy mother church to whose
notice the present letters shall come that when a suit
had been brought by the authority of the Lord Pope
between Stephen, cardinal priest by the title of
Saint Mary Trastevere (trans Tiberim), canon of
Southwell (Suwell), of the one part, and the Prior and
convent of the canons of S. Katharine, of the other, as
to the collation of the school of Newark, at length
the said suit was settled between” the Lord Abbot of
La Roche (de Rupe), proctor of the same Cardinal in
England, with the consent of the chapter of South-
well, by a friendly agreement in this manner :

In the year, to wit, of the incarnation of the Lord
1238, viz., that the said Prior and Convent shall in
chapter at Southwell present a clerk for the rectorship
of the school aforesaid fit to instruct boys in the art
of grammar to the canon, or to the keeper of the said
prebend for the time being, if the canon shall not be
present, as often as it may happen to be vacant,
which clerk shall be admitted by the canon or keeper
of the said prebend without any difficulty ; and the
same clerk shall swear canonical obedience to the
canon of the said prebend and to the chapter.

But if the said clerk shall offend in anything against
the liberties of the church of Southwell or of the said
prebend, if he remain incorrigible, and the said Prior
and Convent shall be negligent in punishing him for
any his excesses which require correction, he shall,
after receiving a mandate in that behalf from the

1A. F. Leach, Memorials of Southwell Minster (Camd.
Soc.), xli, xlii, 52.

? Sic. It is probably one of the sins of the docu-
ment referred to in the note attached to it that it is
not stated who was the representative of the other
side between whom and the abbot the compromise
was effected,

199

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

canon of the prebend or the chapter aforesaid, be
removed by the same Prior and Convent, and another
presented by them in his place shall be admitted.

That this grant may have the strength of per-
petual endurance the Chapter of Southwell and the
aforesaid Prior and Convent have put their authentic
seals on one side and the other to this writing.

Written in the margin is the note already partly
quoted apropos of Southwell School.

Because the collations of grammar schools through-
out the whole archdeaconry of Nottingham belong
solely and wholly to the prebendary of Normanton in
the collegiate church of Southwell, as chancellor in the
same church, and although some pretended agreement
as to the collation of the grammar school of the town
of Newark may have been made, yet it can be of nq
authority, as appears from its tenor, because it sins in
several respects.

This is a remarkable document, and the note
is even more important than the document. It
sounds strange that an Italian bishop, the pope,
should have to interfere in a contest between
the chapter of Southwell and the convent of
St. Katharine, and that a canon of Southwell
should be an absentee Italian priest and a cardinal,
who should be represented in a dispute as to
the rights of the chapter, not by the chapter,
but by a monastic abbot. It sounds stranger
still that a monastery at Lincoln—for such
St. Katharine’s was—should claim and effec-
tively maintain a right to appoint the master of
Newark Grammar School.

The claim of the convent of St. Katharine’s
of Lincoln to appoint the grammar school-
master arose from their being the rectors of the
church of Newark, which had been appropriated
to them. Newark had belonged to Godiva of
Coventry fame, who, according to a spurious
charter in the Eynsham chartulary, circa 1055,
granted it to the church of St. Mary of Stow.
This church has been talked of as if founded as
a monastery—a convent of monks. But it was
not. It was founded as a collegiate church of
secular canons.

Stow was in Lincolnshire, and the minster
there seems to have occupied the same sort
of position in regard to the Mercian bishop of
Dorchester that Southwell Minster did to the
Northumbrian Archbishop of York. For a Saxon
charter, which reads as if it was authentic,
begins :—

Here is shown in what manner was had that agree-
ment between Wulwi [otherwise Wulwig] the bishop
and Leofric the earl and Godgifu wife of the earl
made concerning the minster * of Saint Mary at Stow.
They established priests there and wished to have
altogether the same service there as is had at St. Paul’s
in London... and let this bishop have for his
table all those things which Bishops Etheric and
-Ednoth had before him of those things which by

* Brown, Hist. cf Nescrk, i, 17.

right belong to the bishopric ; namely, two parts of
all things which belong to the minster, and let the
priests have the third part, two festivals excepted . . .
the lands which the bishop and earl and Godgifu and
pious men shall have given it shall always be annexed
to that holy place for the brethren and the repairs of
the minster.

It is this last word which has been mistrans-
lated ‘monastery,’ and so an entirely different
complexion has been given to the foundation and
its history, and the inhabitants of Stow have
been called monks. But in the foundation
charter of Exeter Cathedral by Edward the
Confessor,‘ the life of secular canons is spoken of
as the ‘minster life.” The distinct statement that
it was for priests and the reference to St. Paul’s,
London, as the model, shows that Stow was a col-
lege of secular canons, not a convent of regular
monks, just as Warwick collegiate church ° was to
be on the model of St. Paul’s and Salisbury.

Remigius apparently turned Stow into a monas-
tery, and his successor, Robert Bloet, trans-
ferred it to Eynsham near Oxford, where he
endowed the monks with other lands, and so
regained sole possession of Newark to his own use.
But while Bloet’s successor, Bishop Alexander,
made Newark his principal place of residence
and built the castle, the next bishop, Robert of
Chesney, who founded or assisted Gilbert of Sem-
pringham in founding one of his bi-sexual houses.
of Gilbertine canons and canonesses at St. Katha-
rine’s, just outside the city of Lincoln, gave the
church of Newark to the newly-created prior
and convent about the year 1148. Gilbert him-
self was much interested in education ; indeed,
he had started and kept a school for boys and
girls before he founded his order for men and
women. Hence, no doubt, when the chancel-
lorship of Southwell had fallen into alien and
distant hands, it vexed the soul of the prior of
St. Katharine’s that there was delay or neglect in
the appointment of a schoolmaster at Newark.
Moreover, the gift of the church not unfre-
quently carried with it the gift of the school, as
we saw in the cases of Warwick, Thetford, and
Gloucester elsewhere, schools being essentially
ecclesiastical institutions, and the superior of the
principal church being prima facie the governor
of the school. The alien chancellor was content
with the acknowledgement of the authority of
the chapter implied in the requirement that the
prior and convent should present the schoolmaster
they nominated to the chapter. But the marginal
note, probably written by a later chancellor,
part of whose duty it was to compose charters
and chartularies, shows that the chapter had re-
pudiated the agreement of 1238 before the
compilation of the Liber Albus in the 14th
century, and, as we shall see, had recovered, if
they had ever in fact atandoned, the right of

‘Kemble, Cod. Dip/. iv, 118, no. 791.
° V.C.H. Warw. ii, 300.

200

SCHOOLS

patronage of the school, which, without express
episcopal and papal authority, it is certain they
could not effectively transfer to anyone else.

The next item of information we have as to
Newark School is 100 years later, and shows it
as the school selected by Archbishop William
Melton for some of his young relations. In his
accounts occurs the item: ‘To Simon, master
of the school at Newark, for the expenses of our
kinsmen (consanguineorum) William and Thomas
of Melton and their tutor, as long as they are
there, 25. 5d. a week.’ This sum is made up,
probably, by 8d. a week for each of the boys
and 1s. 1d. for the tutor, since at Winchester
and Eton we find 8d. a week the sum allowed
for the boys’ commons, and Is. a week for those
of the fellows and masters. The disturbed state
of the North, due to the war against Scotland, no
doubt accounts for the archbishop, though an
East Riding man, sending his cousins, nephews,
or perhaps sons, to a school under the shelter of
Newark Castle rather than to Beverley or even
Southwell.

The schoolmaster, Simon, to whom the boys
were sent was Simon of Botelesford (Bottesford),
clerk. Fornext year, 1334,among the corporation
records is a deed which witnesses that John son
of Henry Cotington granted to Symon of Bo-
telesford, schoolmaster (rectori scolarum) of New-
ark, a messuage in Frere (Friar) Lane near a
messuage of the prior of St. Katharine outside
Lincoln,’ while some eleven years later, on
St. Gregory’s Day 1345, Thomas son of Sir
Richard of Byngham, kt., appointed’ Master
Simon of Botelesford, schoolmaster (magistrum
scolarum) of Newark, his attorney to receive rents
for him in the Peak. As early as 1325 he occurs,
probably as a trustee, ina grant ® by William son
of John son of Peter to John son of John son of
Peter, chaplain, and Simon of Botelesford, clerk,
of four messuages in Newark. He acquired pro-
perty on his own account. On 17 June 1334 °
Gilbert Girdeler granted him a rent of 2s. out
of a house in Northgate, and William of Barnby
another rent of 6d. out of a house in Barnibi-
gate (Barnbygate). On 25 April 1334 Robert
Stuffyn had granted him a rent of 135. 4d. from
a house in Baldertongate next to Gild Lane.
This rent was by deed of 25 March the year
following," 1335, under licence in mortmain
20 March 1334,” granted by Simon to John of
Bynington, chaplain, warden (custedi) of the
Trinity altar, who celebrated for the brethren of
the Trinity gild, and especially for Robert Stuffyn,

6 Brown, Hist. of Newark, ii, 175.

7 Ibid. from B.M. Wolley Chart. ii, 25.

6 Ibid. op. cit. i, 111. ° Ibid. i, 134.

0 Ibid. i, 216. A facsimile of the deed is given.

N Tbid. i, 218. A facsimile.

12 8 Edw. III, and therefore not, as in Hist. Newark,
1336, but 1334. The licence of course preceded the
grant.

2 201

his wife Alice and their children, and the soul of
Richard Stuffyn. On 24 August Simon further
granted to the same chaplain celebrating for the
fraternity of the ‘Trinity and St. Peter, and es-
pecially for the king and queen, Queen Isabella,
Archbishop William of Melton and_ others
named, eight messuages worth 40s, a year and 205.
rent. The chaplain was to be presented by the
provost of the gild, or, in default, by the five
other chantry priests of the church. ‘This was
not, as Mr. Brown says, the foundation of a
chantry, but the augmentation of an existing
one; as is shown by the property being valued
in 1535 at £4 18s. 4d., whereas the grant by
Simon of Bottesford was only £3 135. 4d. It
would appear that school-mastering was a gainful
profession at Newark in the reign of Edward III,
when its master could thus afford to endow a
chantry priest in his own lifetime. The papal
sanction to it was given in 1341. WhenSimon
died we do not know.

That Newark School maintained its reputa-
tion is evidenced by a safe-conduct granted by the
king on 26 July 1380 to—

Brother Hugh Maigne, monk of the order of St.
Benedict, of Paslowe in Scotland, who has supplicated
us that, inasmuch as he has stayed at Newark for a long
time in order to study there, and purposes to stay
lonser, we will be so good as to graciously provide for
his security. We, therefore, wishing to accede to his
request, have taken the aforesaid Hugh and all his
goods into our safe and secure conduct and into our
especial protection and defence, while for his aforesaid
study at the aforesaid town of Newark sojourning there
and going thence to the aforesaid parts of Scotland, in
order to seek his expenses and transact other business
there, and returning thence within our Kingdom of
England to the aforesaid town of Newark... . To
last for one year."

It is sufficiently amazing to find a monk thus
journeying backwards and forwards from Scot-
land to Newark for his studies. The document
almost looks as if Newark, like Stamford, had
developed a kind of university. This would
account for the resort to Newark. Mr. Brown
points out that Maigne is probably the same
name as Magnus, which suggests that this 14th-
century monk may have been a Newark man, and
of the family which afterwards produced the
15th and 16th-century Archdeacon Magnus, the
later endower and hitherto reputed founder of
the school. But it seems that there are no other
traces of the name at Newark before the arch-
deacon’s time.

The next mention of the school is in a deed of
6 December 1418, by which a house in Carter
Lane” granted by Roger of the ‘chaumbre’ is

8 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 190.

M Rotuli Scotiae, ti, 26.

© By an unfortunate oversight, with all the wealth
of illustrations in Brown’s Hist. of Newark, there is no
plan of the town either ancient or modern.

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

described as next to a messuage of Stephen Moys,
magister scolarum, of Newark. He had probably
been master for some years, as Stephen Moys,
clerk, appears with other trustees of a messuage in
Newark in a fine in 1405-6.'° In the accounts”®
of the bailiff of Northgate, 1434-5,” Agnes
Genne (?) paid 4d. for a piece of land to enlarge
her garden in Northgate, ‘late in the tenure of
Stephen Moys.’ Ina rental ’® of the tenants of
the Bishop of Lincoln in Newark, said to be of
the reign of Edward IV, Richard Doggettes pays
6d. for a tenement (in Northgate) late of Master
Stephen, rector of the school, and Richard Mel-
born pays 123d. for a tenement late of Master
Stephen of the school. The town account of
1434-5 mentions ‘a tenement in Scolane in
Northgate late of Alice daughter of Margaret.’
The school was therefore originally, not in the
place in which it now is, in Appleton Gate on the
south-east side of the church, but on the north
side of the church. Stephen Moys, master circa
1405 to 1435, was probably succeeded immedi-
ately by Nicholas Bellerby, who in 1485 is
recorded as having resigned.

The Southwell Minster Chapter Act Book
furnishes the next reference to the school, and
shows us the prebendary of Normanton as chan-
cellor of the minster, and not the prior of
St. Katharine’s, exercising the right of patronage
over it. On 5 May 1485 ‘Sir Robert Har-
court was sworn, &c. and admitted to the
grammar school of Newark, vacant by the free
resignation of Nicholas Bellerby, last teacher of
the same school, on the presentation of our be-
loved brother Master John Danvers, prebendary
of Normanton, as heretofore has been accustomed
to be done.” Who Bellerby the last master
was does not appear. Harcourt had in 1484
been admitted one of two chantry priests of the
gild of St. Mary at the altar of the Virgin and
All Saints. This was one of the numerous
chantries in the parish church and was ex-
pressly founded in 1367 because ‘ the vicar,’ who
was a Gilbertine canon, ‘and the parish priest
were not sufficient to serve the cure.’ He was
also probably the Robert Harecowirte or Har-
courte to whom by will of 21 March 1465-6
William Boston, chaplain, gave 35. 4d. Har-
court was also a witness to the will. He had
witnessed also the will of Juliana Hardyng, 12 No-
vember 1465; of John Williamson, 4 March

" Tbid. 155, from P.R.O. Mins. Accts. 954-8.

8 Ibid. i, 160, 163, from P.R.O. Rentals and Surv.
no. 538.

9 [Bids 2% 555

*° Leach, Mem. of Southwell Minster, §2 : ‘Dominus
Robertus Harcourt erat admissus ad scolas gramati-
cales de Newark ad presentacionem . . . prebendarii
de Normanton, prout perantea fieri consuevit, juratus,
&c. per resignacionem liberam Nicholai Bellerby,
ultimi preceptoris earumdem scolarum vacantes,’ &c.

1465-6; and John Smyth, chaplain at St.
Nicholas altar, 6 June 1467; a frequency of
witnessing which suggests that like many other
schoolmasters of the date he was an ecclesiastical
lawyer and drew the wills. He ceased to be
chantry priest in 1488, though whether he then
died does not appear.

It is possible that the grammar school was
connected with or supported by St. Mary’s gild.
For when William Pygg, who became cantarist
of the second chantry of the gild in 1470, made
his will*! 14 February 1498-9, proved 28 May
1500, he gave to the chapel of All Saints his
‘Marrow of Grammar’ (medulla gramatice), and
to the schoolmaster (magistro scolarum) a chair
(cathedram, the technical word for a master’s
chair) for a writer (pro scriptore).

No further mention of the school is forth-
coming for some forty years, when Thomas
Magnus gave the munificent though much mis-
appropriated endowment, now called Magnus’
Charity, to the school.

Thomas Magnus was, like so many other
school and college founders from Walter of
Merton downwards, one of the successful king’s
clerks or civil servants of the day, who were paid
and rewarded for their services to the State by
ecciesiastical preferments in the Church. The
usual tale is told of him as of other founders—
as of Archbishops Chicheley and Rotherham, Sir
Thomas Gresham and the like—that he wasa
pauper foundling. In this case, whether by way
of a joke or seriously it is hard to tell, a stupid
derivation is given of the name ‘ Magnus’ in
Camden,” and copied thence by Anthony
Wood.” Some clothiers found him, ‘an exposed
child left by his mother (nobody knows who) in
the parish church of Newark,’ and_ being
adopted and brought up by them—‘ among us ’—
he became known as ‘Tom Amangus,’ whence
‘Magnus.’ Whether the name ‘Magnus’ is
latinized from the French Maigne or Maine,
or the Danish saint Magnus, or whether it is a
translation of Large, as Melancthon was of
Schwarzerd, we can but unprofitably guess.
Thomas Magnus was not, as Wood seems to
have supposed, a foreigner. He was an English-
man born and a native of Newark, having, as
he informs us in his will,”* 5 March 1549-50,
‘receaved the holie sacrament of baptism within
the parishe churche of Newarke-uponne-Trent,’
in which he accordingly desired to be buried ¢ in
the Trinitie yle.” He was born in the year
1460. At least the Chantry Certificate of
1546” informs us that he was then eighty-six
years old, and already in 1537 he is mentioned

*! Brown, op. cit. i, 356.

* Remains, 146. 3 Fast. Oxon. 29.

* Brown, Hist. of Newark, ii, 210 ; from Reg. Arch.
Holgate, fol. 95 d.

* (Chant. Cert. 631) Yorks. Chant. Surv. (ed. W.
Page, Surt. Soc. 1895), ii, 428.

202

SCHOOLS

as a ‘good old man, less able every day.’ He
was no doubt educated at Newark Grammar
School under Mr. Nicholas Bellerby. He owed
a large part of his promotion in life to Richard
Savage, Archbishop of York, 1501-7 ; for in his
will Magnus desired that if he died at or near
York he might be buried in the cathedral there,
‘as nighe as convenyentlie maye be to the tombe
of my lord Savage, who was my singular good lorde
and maister.’ He first comes to light as rector of
South Collingham in Nottinghamshire, a living
in the gift of the Abbot of Peterborough, on
16 November 1498. On 25 May 1544”
Magnus is mentioned by the Archbishop of York
in some statutes made by him for Ripon Minster,
which were read before him by ‘ Master Thomas
Magnus our secretary (secretarium).’ In June
1504 he was made by Archbishop Savage arch-
deacon of the East Riding, the highest ecclesi-
astical promotion which he attained, which gave
him the title by which he was generally known.
His accumulation of other preferments was con-
siderable. In 1504 he was made sacristan or
head of the collegiate church of St. Mary and
the Holy Angels, ‘commonly called Sepulcre
chapell,’ a sort of archiepiscopal mortuary chapel,
which stood near the archbishop’s palace against
the north side of the nave of York Minster. The
sacristanship was worth {14 175. 64d. in 1535,
plus whatever savings arose out of the absences
of the twelve prebendaries, who got 3d. a day for
attendance at mattins, mass, and vespers, the total
amounting to {43 55. in 1546. At the acces-
sion of Henry VIII Magnus entered the royal
service, and was madearoyal chaplain. He was
employed for many years on business in the north
of England and embassies to Scotland, and as
adviser of Queen Margaret of Scotland, the
king’s sister. He became a member of the Privy
Council. On 14 August 1517 he was made
dean of the collegiate church of Bridgnorth
Castle, which brought him in £40 a year. In
1519 he was given a canonry in the collegiate
church of Llandewi Brefi with the living of
Llanbadarn, Cardigan, worth £6 a year. In
1520 he was made a canon of Windsor, re-
ceiving {51 Is. 10d. a year in 15353 in 1521
canon of Lincoln with the prebend of North
Kelsey, exchanged next year for that of Cor-
ringham, worth £38 16s. 6d. a year. He also
became master of Bootham, or the Horse Fair
Hospital, for aged clerics, just outside the walls
of York, which was suppressed by Cardinal
Pole, its endowment being transferred to and
still forming the endowment of St. Peter’s
School, York, the cathedral grammar school. It
added to his income £11 a year. Magnus was
also master of St. Leonard’s Hospital, York,
which brought him in some £ 362 a year (£4,000
of our money). This hospital spent £30 a year
in maintenance of ‘ 12 choristers and clerks, there

dwelling for their instruction both in song and
in grammar (tam in cantu quam in scientia gram-
maticali), as well in eatables as drinkables and in
clothing and other necessaries’; an institution
which may have suggested Magnus’s own song
school. Besides this he was rector” of Kirkby
in Cleveland (£20), of Bedale (£89 45. 84.)
and of Sessay ({17),”8 all in Yorkshire, ‘ of
Meifod Pool and Guilsfield, in deanery of St.
Asaph,’ and vicar of Kendal (which was.
appropriated to St. Mary’s Abbey, York),
£92 55.3 and he did not despise the chapel
of Whipstrode, Hampshire,”? with its poor
little income of £3 6s. 8d. In Nottingham-
shire itself he only held one promotion, the
wardenship of Sibthorpe College, which brought
in clear £25 18s. 8d. No wonder he was rich
enough to hire from Eton College in 1530,” in
what is now St. James’s Palace, the ‘ great house”
or ‘mansion house’ of St. James’s Hospital, which
had been annexed to Eton chiefly to provide the
provost with a town house. Magnus grumbled
in 1530*! that he had to give up St. James’s for
the season and reside at Sibthorpe because the
King’s laws being so strait he must reside in one
of his benefices. When Wolsey wanted to stay
there, after his fall, on his way north, Magnus
pleaded that it was ‘ unmeet,’ unless he were there
to receive him ; being too small even for his own
retinue. His total income from ecclesiastical pre-
ferments was some £743 135. 6d. in 1535, and is
estimated * at £615 135. gd. in 1546, when he
had resigned some of them. The former sum was
nearly two-thirds of the whole income of Eton,
and more than two-thirds of the whole income of
Winchester College, by far the richest school
foundations of the kingdom. It is equivalent to at
least £14,800 a year of our money and relatively
is worth a great deal more. This was besides
his secular pay as ambassador and member of the
Privy Council, member of the Court of Wards,
&c., which amounted to at least another £300
a year. In fact, he must have been one of the
richest men of the day below the rank of a
bishop. It is therefore not surprising that with
the examples of Colet and Wolsey, and a host
of others before him, he complied with the
almost binding custom of the day, and like them
endowed and made free of fees the grammar
school of his native place. It was apparently
during his enforced residence in the college of
Sibthorpe (which Magnus afterwards surrendered
to the Crown 17 April 1545 * and bought back
as joint purchaser with Richard Whalley, ‘ esquire

*” Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 89. * Thid. 98.

9 [. and P. Henry VIII, xx (1), g. 846 (93).

® Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 21.

8° Eton Coll. Audit R. under date.

"1. and P. Hen. VIII, iv (3), 6341, quoted by
Brown.

® York. Chant. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 428.

3 1. and P. Hen. VIII, xx (1). 634.

203

A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

of the body,’ on 17 July following** for
£197 6s. 74d., he taking an estate for life with
reversion to Whalley) that he first took steps
towards the endowment of the school. On
11 December 1529 he had acquired what was
by far his richest preferment, tne mastership of
St. Leonard’s, the cathedral hospital at York.
On 4 January 1529-30 three persons, doubt-
less his representatives, agreed * to buy from
Ursula Benett, formerly wife of Charles Pilking-
ton, and Robert Pilkington, son and heir of
Charles Pilkington, a messuage and an acre of
pasture land, formerly two messuages, then called
the Porch House, on the east side of Appleton
(Appulton) Gate, and next to the chantry house,
for £7 10s. This is the site of the present
schoolhouse. The conjecture that because it
was called the Porch House, and schools were
sometimes held in church porches, this was the
old grammar schoolhouse, is quite untenable.
The old school was, as we saw, in Northgate, on
the other side of the church. On 15 March
1529-30 Ursula Benett and her then husband
and Robert Pilkington conveyed this and ap-
parently another house next door to Master
Thomas Magnus, warden (gardiano) of the
church of Sibthorpe, and Robert Browne, founder
of Browne’s Charity, and eight others, to the use
of Magnus. On 20 Juneand 5 December 1530
and 24 February 1530-1, Magnus conveyed the
lands intended for the endowment to William
Hoolgill, clerk, Edmund Molyneux, gentleman,
and twenty-one others, to hold to the use of
Maznus and to perform his last will thereof
declared. The first deed comprised 160 acres of
land at Sandwith, Cumberland, half the manor
of Harwell and 1,050 acres of land and twenty-
one houses and three cottages at Harwell and
Everton, Nottinghamshire ; with 340 acres, two
houses and six cottages in Folkingham, Walcot,
and Aslackby in Lincolnshire, which last lands
the corporation in 1733 disclaimed ever having
had. The second deed comprised three houses,
two cottages, and 300 acres of land at Mattersey,
Barnby, and Ranby, Nottinghamshire. The
third deed conveyed the two messuages, two
gardens, and one acre of pasture in Newark. The
deed by which Thomas Magnus declared the
uses of the endowment was made between
the founder, ‘Archdeacon of Estriding in
the cathedral churche of Yorke on that one
partie and William Hoolgyle, clerk, and
Edmonde Molyneux, gentylman, on that other
partye.” William Hoolgyll, or Holgill, was,
seemingly, like Magnus himself, a Newark boy
who had thriven in the service of the State and
been rewarded with ecclesiastical preferments.
He first appears as chaplain and executor of Rozer

Layburn, Bishop of Carlisle, in his will 17 July

“1. and P. Hen. VIII, xx (1), g. 1335 (46).
*% Brown, Hist. of Newark, ii, 183.

1504.3° He was now master of the Savoy
Hospital, London, founded by Henry VI
and his executors, joint rector with Magnus
of Otley,” in Yorkshire, and rector of Guise-
ley.8 He was the principal executor of the
will of another Newark benefactor, Robert
Browne, made a few months later, 4 September
1532. Edmond Molyneux seems also to have
been a Newark boy, a barrister, who was in 1541
a serjeant-at-law and became Sir Edmond, and
in 1550 a judge of the Common Pleas. A
William Molyneux of Hawton, gent., who was
one of the feoffees of Robert Browne’s lands, was
his nephew.®® From the latter’s will it appears
that the Molyneux were a branch of the Lan-
cashire family of the name now represented by
the Earl of Sefton.

The deed of settlement was perhaps executed
in 1532, instead of the foundation being post-
poned to his last will, in order, as suggested
by the anonymous author of dn Account of the
Donations to the Parish of Newark in 1748, to
anticipate the Act against Superstitious Uses,
passed 1 March 1532. It is one of the most
elaborate of school foundation deeds we have,
its provisions being complicated by the desire to
avoid the Statute of Mortmain and to provide for
apprehended changes of circumstance.

The original deed does not seem to be extant,
but a contemporary office copy, in a_ leather
binding, with copies of the conveyances of the
property, evidently made at the time to serve as
a perpetual memorandum, is among the town
muniments.

This indenture is dated 21 February, 23
Henry VIII, i.e. 1531-2.

In this document, after reciting that the
whole net value of the lands was {42 8s. 4d,
Magnus ‘covenanteth, agreeth and graunteth’
and the feoffees ‘agre and graunt to and
with’ Magnus ‘in manner and forme under-
written’:

That ys to saye, £18 parcell of the Yssues,
Revenues, and Profitts of the saide Landys, Tenements
and Heredytaments shall yerely be payde and
ymployde to and for the Exhibition and fyndyng of
two seculer honest Prests, wherof the one Prest shall
have sufficient Connyng and Lernyng to teche Gramer,
and the other Prest, Connyng and Lernyng to teche
playne Song, pryk Song, descant and to play at the
Organs ; and the said two Prests frely shall teche and
instruct all persons and chyldren that wyll at Newarke
aforsaid come to Scoole with theym, and shall be
dysposed to lerne Gramer, pryke Song, playne Song
or descant. That ys to say, the one of the <ame
Prests to teche gramer and the other playne Song, pryk

* Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc.), iv, 263.

7 W. Page, Vorks. Chant. Surv. (Surt. Soc.), ii, 395.
bid. AY hs

* Test. Elor. (Surt. Soc.), vi, 141-2.

” Reprinted by T. F. A. Burnaby, town clerk, for

the trustees, Newark, 1355.

204

SCHOOLS

Song and descant. And that the same Prests or
either of theym, shall not have, nor take, or require
to have, or take for his or theyr techyng any thyng,
oneless yt be frely and liberally gyven unto theym
by the Frendys of the Scolers, or by the same
Scoolers, by way of Rewarde, without any former
Covenant or Promyse, except yt be for teching to
play at the Organs.

In other words, there was to be a free grammar
school and a free song school. Of the £18 the
grammar schoolmaster was to have {10 a year
and the song schoolmaster £8. ‘Which two
prests shalbe at Newarke aforesaide contynually
abydyng there to teche childer and scolers.’? The
‘continual abiding’ was however to be tempered
by both holy days and holidays. ‘And that the
saide two Prests and either of theym, for mayn-
tenyng of dyvyne service, shalbe every Sunday,
festyvall Daye and other Holyday, in the whiche
worldly Occupation ys prohibited to be usyd, in
the Parisshe Churche of Newarke aforsaide, at
Evensong, Matens, Messe and Processyon, . . .
and there to helpe to the Celebracion of the
Solempne dyvyne Servyce.’ They were also
daily to pray for the souls of Henry VII and
Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII, the queen’s grace
(i.e. Katherine Howard), and my lord prince
(Edward VI), Magnus himself, John and Alice
Magnus, his father and mother, his three sisters,
‘and for all his other benefactours, famyliers
and for the estate of the inhabitantys,’ and of the
feoffees, present and future. So much for the
holy days. As for holidays: ‘And forsomuche
as yt ys tedyous and grevous for the saide two
Prests, for the tyme beyng, contynually to re-
mayne and tary at Newark, as ys aforsaid, with-
out some convenyent tyme for solace and recrea-
tion to be had to theym, and for other theyr
necessary and nedefull Busynes; the said
Thomas Magnus convenanteth and graunteth
by thys Presents, that the said two Prests, and
eyther of theym, shall have yerely 30 daies for
their Recreation and to do their Busyness.’

The reforming view then coming into the
ascendant that it was not necessary that school-
masters should be parsons then finds expres-
sion,

And yf yt shall or may soe happen or chaunce
hereafter, upon any resonable consideration, as the
Case and Tyme shall requyre, that yt shal be thought
moore convenyent and rather [easier], to make and
ordeyne two temporall and Lay-men School-maisters
of the said Scooles, or aither of theym, then two
Prests : the said Thomas Magnus covenanteth, agreeth,
and graunteth, that like Order be taken with theym,
and to the same temporall or laye-men, or oone of
theym, as afore is mencyoned, for the saide Prests,
and either of theym. Alweys provyded that if Prests
can or may be had, doyng their dutie, as ys abovesaide,
that they be suffered to have the Use, Occupation and
exercysyng of the said two Roomes, devysed for the
said two Scoolemaisters, before any temporall or laye
Persones.

The ‘said two roomes’ does not of course mean
the schoolrooms, but the rooms or offices of
schoolmaster. The difference between the
scholars attending the two schools is plainly
marked. There were to be

sex Chylder chosen apte and mete to lerne to syng,
and they to be thaught by the said Maister of the Song
Scoole their playn Song, pryk Song, descant and to
play the organs. So that their Maister and the sex
childer, every Sonday and other Festyvall or Holy-
day, be present and do mayntayn dyvyne service in
the high querre of the Churche of Newark aforsaid
with syngyng and playing at the Organs. And the
same Childer syx dayes in every wooke, that ys to
saye, every Sondaye, Monday, Tuesday, Wennesday,
Thursday and Saterday, shall kepe our Ladyes Masse
at the Alter dedycate in the Honour of our Lady in
the said Churche of Newarke ; and every Fryday
Masse of Jhesus in the Place accustumed there. And
that the said Masses and every of theym shalbe
solemply song with Note and Organs

except on Tuesday in Whitsun week and the
Wednesday to Saturday after Palm Sunday.

Moreover the Song Schoolmaster and the
6 children were to

nyghtly kepe our Ladyes antyme [anthem]. . . in
the place accustumed ; and forthwitth . . . another
antempne of Jhesus ... afore the roode in the
bodye of the churche (i.e. the nave); the same
Schoolmaister and chylder knelyng in the manner and
forme as... hath and ys usyd before the Roode of the
North Dore in . . . Seynt Paule in London and in
the college of Wyndesore, with lyke prostracions and
devout maner.

On the other hand the grammar schoolmaster
and his scholars were only bound to attend
church on one week day, Friday, and on saints
days.

And that every Frydaye the said Gramer Scoole
maister and his Scoolers, two and two together, shall
come to Jhesus Masse in the Parishe Churche of
Newarke aforsaid and ther to be exercysyd in Prayers,
Contemplacyons, Redyng upon Bookes, or otherwyse
vertuously occupyed as the Tyme and Place requyryth.
And also the same Maister and Scoolers of the said
Gramer Scoole every holy daye shall kepe, and be
present at Processyons and helpe in the said querre to
mayntayne dyvyne Servyce as they convenyently
canne and may.

Even the little ones attended at a side chapel
of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of schoolboys
and the original of the boy-bishop. ‘And that
the said maisters shall see that suche childer as
cannot well syng and rede nor be convenyent to
come into the Querre doe say their matens and
evensong two and two of theym together, and
after the same doon, otherwyse to be vertuously
occupyed, and to contynue and be every hooly-
day in the chapell called Seynt Nicholas chapell
or Seynt Nicholas quere.’

The six song-school children were to receive
each £1 6s. 8d. a year ‘towardys their mete

205

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Full text of "The Victoria history of the county of Nottingham;"

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